IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


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Photographic 

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Corporation 


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CIHM/ICMH 

Microfiche 

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□    Coloured  covers/ 
Couverture  de  couleur 


I      I    Covers  damaged/ 


a 


a 


n 


Couverture  endommagde 


□    Covers  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
Couverture  restaurie  et/ou  pellicul^e 

□    Cover  title  missing/ 
Le  titre  de  couverture  manque 


Coloured  ^raps/ 

Cartes  giographiques  en  couleur 


Coloured  ink  (i.e.  other  than  blue  or  black)/ 
Encre  de  couleur  (i.e.  autre  que  blaue  ou  noire) 


r~|    Coloured  plates  and/or  illustrations/ 


D 


Planches  et/ou  illustrations  an  couleur 

Bound  with  other  material/ 
Relii  avec  d'autres  documents 

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II  se  peut  que  certaines  pages  blanches  ajout^es 
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modification  dans  la  mithode  normale  de  filmage 
sont  indiquis  ci-dessous. 


r~~~|    Coloured  pages/ 


D 
D 
0 
D 
0 
D 
D 
D 

n 


Pages  de  couleur 

Pages  damaged/ 
Pages  endommag^es 

Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 
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obtenir  la  meilleure  image  possible. 


Tha 
pos 
oft 
filrr 


Orif 
bog 
tho 
tior 
othi 
first 
•ior 
oril 


The 
■ha 
TIN 
whi 

Mai 
difff 
■ntl 
bag 
righ 
raqi 
mat 


This  item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  est  film^  au  taux  de  reduction  indiqud  ci-dessous. 


10X 

14X 

18X 

22X 

26X 

30X 

J 

12X 


16X 


20X 


24X 


28X 


32X 


Th«  copy  film«d  h«r«  has  b««n  raproduccd  thanks 
to  tha  ganarosity  of: 

Library  Division 

Provincial  Archives  of  British  Columbia 


L'axamplaira  film*  fut  raprodult  grica  i  la 
gAn4roalt4  da: 

Library  Division 

Provincial  Archives  of  British  Columbia 


Tha  imagas  appaaring  hara  ara  tha  bast  quality 
poasibia  considaring  tha  condition  and  laglbility 
of  tha  original  copy  and  in  kaaping  with  tha 
filming  contract  spacificatlons. 


Las  Imagas  sulvantas  ont  At4  raproduitas  avac  la 
plus  grand  soln,  compta  tanu  da  la  condition  at 
da  la  nattati  da  l'axamplaira  filmA,  at  9n 
conformit*  avac  las  conditions  du  contrat  da 
fiimaga. 


Original  copias  in  printad  papar  covars  ara  filmad 
baglnning  with  tha  front  covar  and  anding  on 
tha  last  paga  with  a  printad  or  illustratad  impras- 
sion,  or  tha  back  covar  whan  appropriata.  All 
othar  original  copias  ara  filmad  baglnning  on  tha 
first  paga  with  a  printad  or  illustratad  impras- 
slon,  and  anding  on  tha  last  paga  with  a  printad 
or  illustratad  imprassion. 


Tha  last  racordad  frame  on  each  microfiche 
shall  contain  tha  symbol  — i^>  (meaning  "CON- 
TINUED"), or  the  symbol  y  (meaning  "END"), 
whichever  applies. 


Les  exemplalras  originaux  dont  la  couvarture  en 
papier  est  ImprimAe  sont  flim4s  en  commen9ant 
par  la  premier  plat  at  en  terminant  soit  par  la 
darnlAre  paga  qui  comporte  une  emprelnte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration,  soit  par  la  second 
plat,  salon  la  cas.  Tous  las  autres  exemplalras 
originaux  sont  fiimis  en  commen^ant  par  la 
premiere  paga  qui  comporte  une  emprelnte 
d'impression  ou  d'illustration  at  en  terminant  par 
la  derniire  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
emprelnte. 

Un  des  symboies  suivants  apparaitra  sur  la 
darnidre  image  de  cheque  microfiche,  selon  ie 
cas:  Ie  symbols  — »>  signifie  "A  SUIVRE",  ie 
symbols  V  signifie  "FIN". 


Maps,  plates,  cherts,  etc.,  may  be  filmed  at 
different  reduction  ratios.  Those  too  large  to  be 
entirely  included  in  one  exposure  are  filmed 
beginning  in  the  upper  left  hand  corner,  left  to 
right  and  top  to  bottom,  as  many  frames  as 
required.  The  following  diagrams  illustrate  the 
method: 


Les  cartes,  planches,  tableaux,  etc..  peuvent  Atre 
fiimAs  A  des  taux  de  reduction  diffArents. 
Lorsque  ie  document  est  trop  grand  pour  Atre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  clichA.  il  est  film*  A  partir 
de  Tangle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  A  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prenant  Ie  nombre 
d'images  nAcessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
iiiustrant  la  mAthode. 


1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

1 


OREGON; 


OR 


A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  A  LONG  JOURNEY 


FROM   THE 


ATLANTIC  OCEAN  TO  THE  REGION  OF  THE  PACIFIC, 


BY    LAND; 


DRAWN  DP  FROM  THE  NOTES  AND  ORAL  INFORMATION 


OF 


u 


JOHN   B.   WYETH, 


ONE  OF  THE  PARTY  WHO  LEFT  MR.  NATHANIEL  J.  WYETH, 


JULY   28th,   1833,    FO0R   DATs'    MARCH   BEYOND    THE   RIDGE    OF    THE 


'fv| 


ROOST  MOUNTAXWS, 


AND  THE  ONLY  ONE  WHO  HAS  RETCRNED  TO  NEW  ENGLAND. 


CAMBRIDGE : 

PRINTED  FOR  JOHN   B.   WYETH. 

1833. 


A  CONTENTED  MIND  IS  A  CONTINUAL  FEAST  ;  but  entire 
satisfaction  has  never  been  procured  by  wealth  however 
enormous,  or  ambition  however  successful. 

True  happiness  is  to  no  place  confin'd, 
But  still  is  found  in  a  contented  mind. 


OREGON  EXPEDITION 


ire 
ver 


T 


In  order  to  understand  this  Oregon  Expedition, 
it  is  necessary  to  say,  that  thirty  years  ago  (1803), 
President  Jefferson  recommended  to  Congress 
to  authorize  competent  officers  to  explore  the  river 
Missouri  from  its  mouth  to  its  source,  and  by 
crossing  the  mountains  to  seek  the  best  water 
communication  thence  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  This 
arduous  task  was  undertaken  by  Captain  M.  Lewis 
and  Lieutenant  W.  Clarke  of  the  first  regiment  of 
infantry.  They  were  accompanied  by  a  select 
party  of  soldiers,  and  arrived  at  the  Missouri  in 
May,  1804,  and  persisted  in  their  novel  and  diffi- 
cult task  into  the  year  1806,  and  with  such  success 
as  to  draw  from  President  Jefferson  the  following 
testimonial  of  their  heroic  services,  viz.  "  The 
expedition  of  Messrs.  Lewis  &  Clarke,  for  ex- 
ploring the  river  Missouri,  and  the  best  communi- 
cation from  that  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  has  had  all 
the  success  which  could  be  expected  ;  and  for 
which  arduous  service  they  deserve  well  of  their 
country." 

The  object  of  this  enterprise  was  to  confer  in  a 
friendly  manner  with  the  Indian  Nations  through- 
out their  whole  journey,  with  a  view  to  establish  a 
friendly   and  equitable  commerce  with  them,  on 

1 


^ 


?zrii^ 


2 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


principles  emulating  those  that  marked  and  digni- 
fied the  settlement  of  Penns^'lvania  by  William 
Penn.  It  was  beyond  doubt  that  the  President 
and  Congress  sincerely  desired  to  treat  the  Indians 
with  kindness  and  justice,  and  to  establish  peace, 
order,  and  good  neighbourhood  with  all  the  savage 
tribes  with  whom  they  came  in  contact,  and  not 
to  carry  war  or  violence  among  any  of  them  who 
appeared  peaceably  disposed. 

A  few  years  before  the  period  of  which  we  have 
spoken,  our  government  had  acquired  by  purchase 
the  vast  and  valuable  Territory  of  Louisiana  from 
the  renowned  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  at  that  time 
the  Chief  of  the  French  Nation.  Considering  his 
previous  intentions,  and  actual  preparations  under 
his  famous  General  Bernadotte^  nothing  could  be 
more  fortunate  for  these  United  States  than  this 
purchase.  Our  possession  of  Louisiana  was  so 
grievous  a  sore  to  the  very  jealous  Spaniards,  that 
they  have,  till  lately,  done  all  in  their  power  to  de- 
bar and  mislead  us  from  pursuing  discoveries  in  that 
quarter,  or  in  the  Arkansas,  Missouri,  or  Oregon, 
Yet  few  or  none  of  them  probably  believed  that 
we  should,  during  the  present  generation,  or  the 
next,  attempt  the  exploration  of  the  distant  Oregon 
Territory,  which  extends  from  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  or  in  other 
words,  from  the  Missouri  and  Yellow  Stone  rivers 
to  that  of  the  river  Columbia  or  Oregon  which 
pours  into  the  Ocean  by  a  wide  mouth  at  the  im- 
mense distance  from  us  of  about  four  thousand 
miles ;  yet  one  and  twenty  men,  chiefly  farmers 
and  a  few  mechanics  had  the  hardihood  to  under- 
take it,  and  that  too  with  deliberation  and  sober 
calculation.      But  what  will  not  a  New-England 


W2 


WYETH's  OREGON   EXPEDITJON. 


ni- 
lam 
ent 
ans 
ice, 
age 
not 


-  , 


man  undertake  when  honor  and  interest  are  the  ob- 
jects before  him  ?  Have  not  the  people  of  that 
sand-bank,  Nantucket,  redeemed  it  from  the  ocean, 
and  sailed  round  Cape  Horn  in  pursuit  of  whales 
for  their  oil,  and  seals  for  their  skins  ?  A  score  of 
our  farmers  seeing  that  Nantucket  and  New  Bed- 
ford had  acquired  riches  and  independence  by 
traversing  the  sea  to  the  distant  shores  of  the  Pa- 
cific, determined  to  do  something  like  it  by  land. 
Their  ardor  seemed  to  have  hidden  from  their  eyes 
the  mighty  difference  between  the  facility  of  pass- 
ing in  a  ship  with  the  aid  of  sails,  progressing 
day  and  night,  by  skilfully  managing  the  winds 
and  the  helm,  and  that  of  a  complicated  wagon 
upon  wheels,  their  journey  to  be  over  moun- 
tains and  rivers,  and  through  hostile  tribes  of 
savages  who  dreaded  and  hated  the  sight  of  a 
white  man. 

This  novel  expedition  was  not  however  the  original 
or  spontaneous  notion  of  Mr.  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth, 
nor  was  it  entirely  owing  to  the  publications  of 
Lewis  &  Clarke  or  Mackenzie.  Nor  was  it  en- 
tirely owing  to  the  enterprise  of  Messrs.  Barrell, 
Hatch,  and  Bulfinch,  who  fitted  out  two  vessels 
that  sailed  from  Boston  in  1787,  commanded  by  Cap- 
tains Kendrick  and  Gray,  which  vessels  arrived  at 
Nootka  in  September,  1788.  They  were  roused  to 
it  by  the  writings  of  Mr.  Hall  J.  Kelly,  who  had 
read  all  the  books  he  could  get  on  the  voyages  and 
travels  in  Asia,  Africa,  Europe,  and  America,  until 
he  had  heated  his  mind  to  a  degree  little  short  of 
the  valorous  Knight  of  La  Mancha,  that  is  to  say, 
he  believed  all  he  read,  and  vvas  firm  in  the  opinion 
that  an  Englishman  and  an  American,  or  either, 
by  himself,  could  endure  and  achieve  any  thing 


k 


m 


4 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


that  any  man  could  do  with  the  same  help,  and 
farther,  that  a  New-England  man  or  "  Yankee," 
could  with  less.  That  vast  region,  which  stretches 
from  between  the  east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  south 
of  the  Lakes  Superior,  Huron,  Michigan,  Erie, 
and  Ontario,  was  too  narrow  a  space  for  the  enter- 
prise of  men  born  and  bred  within  a  mile  or  two 
of  the  oldest  University  in  the  United  States. 
Whatever  be  the  true  character  of  the  natives  of 
New  England,  one  thing  must  be  allowed  them, 
that  of  great  and  expansive  ideas,  —  beyond,  far 
beyond  the  generality  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
small  Island  of  Britain.  I  say  small,  for  if  that 
Island  should  be  ])laced  in  the  midst  of  these  United 
States,  it  would  hardly  form  more  than  a  single  mem- 
ber of  our  extended  republic.  That  vast  rivers, 
enormous  mountains,  tremendous  cataracts,  with 
an  extent  corresponding  to  the  hugeness  of  the  fea- 
tures of  America,  naturally  inspire  men  with  bound- 
less ideas,  few  will  doubt.  This  adventurous  dispo- 
sition, at  the  same  time,  will  as  naturally  banish 
from  the  mind  what  the  new-light  doctrine  of  Phre- 
nology calls  the  disposition  bump  of  Inhabiiiveness, 
or  an  inclination  to  stay  at  home,  and  in  its  place  give 
rise  to  a  roaming,  wandering  inclination,  which,  some 
how  or  other,  may  so  affect  the  organs  of  vision,  and 
of  hearing,  as  to  debar  a  person  from  perceiving  what 
others  may  see,  the  innumerable  difficulties  in  the 
way.  Mr.  Hall  J.  Kelly's  writings  operated  like  a 
match  applied  to  the  combustible  matter  accumula- 
ted in  the  mind  of  the  energetic  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth, 
which  reflected  and  multiplied  the  flattering  glass 
held  up  to  view  by  the  ingenious  and  well-disposed 
schoolmaster. 
Mr.  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  had  listened  with  peculiar 


^: 


I 


nd 

e," 
lies 
uth 

ie, 
[er- 
ivvo 
tes. 

of 
!in, 
far 


h 


WYEIh's   OREGON  EXPEDITION.  6 

delight  to  all  the  flatteruig  accounts  from  the 
Western  regions,  and  that  at  a  time  when  he  was 
surrounded  with  apparent  advantages,  and  even 
enviable  circumstances.  He  was  born  and  bred 
near  the  borders  of  a  beautiful  small  Lake,  as  it 
would  be  called  in  Great  Britain ;  but  what  we  in 
this  country  call  a  large  Pond  ;  because  we  gene- 
rally give  the  name  of  Lakes  only  to  our  vast  in- 
land seas,  some  of  which  almost  rival  iu  size  the 
Caspian  and  Euxine  in  the  old  world.  It  seems  that 
he  gave  entire  credit*to  the  stories  of  the  wonder- 
ful fertility  of  the  soil  on  the  borders  of  the  Ohio, 
Missouri,  the  river  Platte,  and  the  Oregon,  with  the 
equally  wonderful  healthfulness  of  the  climate.  We 
need  not  wonder  that  a  mind  naturally  ardent  and 
enterprising  should  become  loo  enthusiastic  to  pur- 
sue the  laborious  routine  of  breaking  up  and  harrow- 
ing the  hard  and  stubborn  soil  of  Massachusetts  with- 
in four  miles  of  the  sea,  where  the  shores  are  bound- 
ed and  fortified  by  stones  and  rocks,  which  extend 
inland,  lying  just  below  the  surface  of  the  ground, 
while  the  regions  of  the  West  were  represented  as 
standing  in  need  of  very  little  laborious  culture,  such 
was  the  native  vigor  of  its  black  soil.  The  spot 
where  our  adventurer  was  born  and  grew  up,  had 
many  peculiar  and  desirable  advantages  over  most 
others  in  the  county  of  Middlesex.  Besides  rich  pas- 
turage, numerous  dairies,  and  profitable  orchards, 
and  other  fruit  trees,  it  possessed  the  luxuries  of 
well  cultivated  gardens  of  all  sorts  of  culinary 
vegetables,  and  all  within  three  miles  of  the  Bos- 
ton Market-House,  and  two  miles  of  the  largest 
live-cattle  market  in  New  England.  All  this,  and 
more  too,  had  not  sufficient  attractions  to  retain 
Mr.  Wyeth  in  his  native  town  and  county. 

1* 


f  I 


I;. 


I 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXFEDITIOPT, 


Beside  these  blessings,  I  shall  add  another. 
The  Lake  I  spoke  of,  commonly  called  Fresh 
Pond,  is  a  body  of  delightful  water,  which  seems 
to  be  the  natural  head  or  source  of  all  the  numer- 
ous underground  rivers  running  between  it  and  the 
National  Navy  Yard  at  Charlestown,  which  is  so 
near  to  the  city  of  Boston  as  to  be  connected  to  it 
by  a  bridge  ;  for  wherever  you  sink  a  well,  between 
the  body  of  water  just  mentioned,  you  strike  a  pel- 
lucid vein  of  it  at  from  nineteen  to  twenty-two 
feet  depth  from  the  surface.*  With  the  aforesaid 
Lake  or  Pond  is  connected  another  not  quite  so 
large,  but  equally  beautiful.  Around  these  bodies 
of  inosculating  waters,  are  well  cultivated  farms 
and  a  number  of  gentlemen's  country-seats,  form- 
ing a  picture  of  rural  beauty  and  plenty  not  easily 
surpassed  in  Spring,  Summer,  and  Autumn  ;  and 
whpn  winter  has  frozen  the  lakes  and  all  the  rivers, 
this  spot  has  another  and  singular  advantage  ;  for 
our  adventurer  sold  the  ivaier  of  this  pond ;  which 
was  sent  to  the  West-India  Islands,  Philadelphia, 
New  Orleans,  and  other  places  south  of  this  ;  which 
is  so  much  of  a  singularity  as  to  require  explana- 
tion. 

In  our  very  coldest  weather,  January  and  Feb- 
ruary, the  body  of  water  we  spoke  of  is  almost 
every  year  frozen  to  the  thickness  of  from  eighteen 
inches  to  two  feet,  —  sometimes  less,  and  very  rare- 
ly more.  It  is  then  sawed  into  cubes  of  the  size 
just  mentioned,  and  deposited  in  large  store-houses, 
and  carted  thence  every  month  in  the  year,  even 
through  the  dog-days,  in  heavy  teams  drawn  by 
oxen  and  horses  to  the  wharves  in  Boston,  and 
put  on  board  large  and  properly  constructed  ves- 
sels, and    carried   into    the   hot  climates   already 


- 


I 

V 


■  1''1 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITIOX. 


mentioned.      The    heavy  teams  five,  or  six,   or 
more,  close  following  each  other,  day  and   night, 
and  even  through  the  hottest  months,  would  ap- 
pear incredible  to  a  stranger.     Here  was  a  traffic 
without  any   drawback,   attended  with  no   other 
charge  than  the  labor  of  cutting   and  transport- 
ing the  article  ;  for  the  pond  belonged  to  no  man, 
any   more    than    the    air   which   hung   above    it. 
Both  belonged  to  mankind.     No  one  claimed  any 
personal    property  in  it,  or  control   over   it   from 
border  to  border.     A  clearer  profit  can  hardly  be 
imagined.     While  the  farmer  was  •j)loughing  his 
ground,  manuring  and  planting  it,  securing  his  well- 
tended  crop  by  fencing,  and  yet  after  all  his  labor, 
the  Hessian-fly,  the  canker  or  slug  worm,  or  some 
other  destructive  insect,  or  some  untimely  frost,  as 
was  the  case  last  winter,   might  lay  waste  all  his 
pains  and  cut  off  all  his  expectations.     The  only 
risk  to  which  the  Ice-merchant  was  liable  was  a 
blessing  to  most  of  the  community ;  I   mean  the 
mildness  of  a  winter  that  should  prevent  his  native 
lake  from  freezing  a  foot  or  two  thick.     Our  fish- 
ermen have  a  great  advantage  over  the  farmer  in 
being   exempt   from    fencing,    walling,   manuring, 
taxation,  and    dry    seasons ;    and   only    need  the 
expence  of  a  boat,  line,  and  hook,  and  the  risk  of 
life  and  health  ;  but  from  all  these  the  Ice-man  is 
in    a  manner   entirely    exempted ;     and   yet   the 
Captain  of  this  Oregon  Expedition  seemed  to  say. 
All  this  availeth  me  nothing,  so  long  as  I  read 
books  in  which  I  find,  that  by  only  going  about/owr 
thousand  miles^  over  land,  from  the  shore  of  our 
Atlantic  to   the   shore  of    the    Pacific^  after  we 
have  there  entrapped  and  killed  the  beavers  and 
otters,  we  shcill  be  able,  after  building  vessels  for 


•  ■•'41 


m 

,   U.'      -J 

M 


W 


8 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


If' 


the  purpose,  to  carry  our  most  valuable  peltry  to 
China  and  Cochin  China,  our  seal-skins  to  Japan, 
and  our  superfluous  grain  to  various  Asiatic  ports, 
and  lumber  to  the  Spanish  settlements  on  the  Pa- 
cific ;  and  to  become  rich  by  underworking  and 
underselling  the  people  of  Hindostan  ;  and,  to  crown 
all,  to  extend  far  and  wide  the  traffic  in  oil  by  kil- 
ling tame  whales  on  the  spot,  instead  of  sailing 
round  the  stormy  region  of  Cape  Horn. 

All  these  advantages  and  more  too  were  sugges- 
ted to  divers  discontented  and  impatient  young 
men.  Talk  to  them  of  the  great  labor,  toil,  and 
risk,  and  they  would  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  you :  argue 
with  them,  and  you  might  as  well  reason  with  a 
snow-storm.  Enterprising  young  men  run  away 
with  the  idea  that  the  farther  they  go  from  home, 
the  surer  they  will  be  of  making  a  fortune.  The 
original  projector  of  this  golden  vision  first  talked 
himself  into  the  visionary  scheme,  and  then  talked 
twenty  others  into  the  same  notion.  Some  of  their 
neighbours  and  well-wishers  thought  differently 
from  them  ;  and  some  of  the  oldest,  and  most 
thoughtful,  and  prudent  endeavoured  to  dissuade 
them  from  so  very  arduous  and  hazardous  an  expe- 
dition. But  young  and  single  men  are  for  tempt- 
ing the  untried  scene ;  and  when  either  sex  has  got 
a  notion  of  that  sort,  the  more  you  try  to  dissuade 
them,  the  more  intent  they  are  on  their  object. 
Nor  is  this  bent  of  mind  always  to  be  censured,  or 
wondered  at.  Were  every  man  to  be  contented 
to  remain  in  the  town  in  which  he  was  born,  and 
to  follow  the  trade  of  his  father,  there  would  be 
an  end  to  improvement,  and  a  serious  impediment 
to  spreading  population.  It  is  difficult  to  draw  the 
exact  line  between  contentment,  and  that  inactivity 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


or 


■ 


which  approaches  laziness.  The  disposition  either 
way  seems  stamped  upon  us  by  nature,  and  there- 
fore innate.  This  is  certainly  the  case  with  birds 
and  beasts;  —  the  wild  geese  emigrate  late  in  the 
Autumn  to  a  southern  climate,  and  return  again  in 
the  Spring  to  a  northern  one,  while  the  owl  and 
several  other  birds  remain  all  their  lives  near  where 
they  were  hatched ;  whereas  man  is  not  so  much 
confined  by  a  natural  bias  to  his  native  home.  He 
can  live  in  all  climates  from  the  equator  to  very 
near  the  dreary  poles,  which  is  not  the  case  with 
other  animals  ;  and  it  would  seem  that  nature  in- 
tended he  should  live  any  where; — for  where- 
as other  animals  are  restricted  in  their  articles  of 
food,  some  living  wholly  on  flesh,  and  others  whol- 
ly on  vegetables,  man  is  capable  of  feeding  upon 
every  thing  that  is  eatable  by  any  creature,  and  of 
mixing  every  article  together,  and  varying  them  by 
his  knowledge  and  art  of  cookery,  —  a  knowledge 
and  skill  belonging  to  man  alone.  Hence  it  appears 
that  PromV/e/2ce,  who  directs  everything  for  the 
best,  intended  that  man  should  wander  over  the 
globe,  inhabit  every  region,  and  dwell  wherever 
the  sun  could  shine  upon  him,  and  where  water 
could  be  obtained  for  his  use. 

So  far  from  deriding  the  disposition  to  explore 
unknown  regions,  we  should  consider  judicious 
travellers  as  so  many  benefactors  of  mankind.  It 
is  most  commonly  a  propensity  that  marks  a  vigor- 
ous intellect,  and  a  benevolent  heart.  The  con- 
duct of  the  Spaniards,  when  they  conquered  Mexico 
and  Peru  with  the  sole  view  of  robbing  them  of 
their  gold  and  silver,  and  of  forcing  them  to  aban- 
don their  native  religion,  has  cast  an  odium  on  those 
first  adventurers  upon  this  continent  and  their  first 


^.^■ 


i 


10 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


i 


enterprises  in  India  have  stigmatized  the  Dutch 
and  the  English ;  nor  were  our  own  forefathers, 
who  left  England  to  enjoy  religious  freedom,  en- 
tirely free  from  the  stain  of  injustice  and  cruelty 
towards  the  native  Indians.  —  Let  us  therefore  in 
charity,  nay,  in  justice,  speak  cautiously  of  what 
may  seem  to  us  censurable  in  the  first  explorers  of 
uncivilized  countries ;  and  if  we  should  err  in 
judgment,  let  it  ()e  on  the  side  of  commendation. 

Mr.  Wyeth,  or  as  we  shall  hereafter  call  him. 
Captain  Wyeth,  as  being  leader  of  the  Band  of 
the  Oregon  adventurers,  after  having  inspired 
twenty-one  persons  with  his  own  high  hopes  and 
expectations  (among  whom  was  his  own  brother. 
Dr.  Jacob  Wyeth,  and  a  gun-smith,  a  black-smith, 
two  carpenters,  and  two  fishermen,  the  rest  being 
farmers  and  laborers,  brought  up  to  no  particular 
trade)  was  ready,  with  his  companions,  to  start  off 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  first  of  March,  1832,  to  go 
from  Boston  to  the  mouth  of  Columbia  river  by  land. 

I  was  the  youngest  of  the  company,  not  having 
attained  my  twentieth  year  ;  but,  in  the  plenitude 
of  health  and  spirits,  I  hoped  every  thing,  believed 
every  thing  my  kinsman,  the  Captain,  believed  and 
said,  and  all  doubts  and  fears  were  banished.  The 
Captain  used  to  convene  us  every  Saturday  night 
at  his  house  for  many  months  previous  to  our  de- 
parture, to  arrange  and  settle  the  plan  of  our  future 
movements,  and  to  make  every  needful  preparation  ; 
and  such  were  his  thoughtfulness  and  vigilance, 
that  it  seemed  to  us  nothing  was  forgotten  and 
every  thing  necessary  provided.  Our  three  ve- 
hicles, or  wagons,  if  we  may  call  by  that  name 
a  unique  contrivance,  half  boat,  and  half  carriage, 
may  be  mentioned  as  an  instance  of  our  Captain's 


'I 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


11 


talents  for  snug  contrivance.  It  was  a  boat  of 
about  thirteen  feet  long,  and  four  feet  wide,  of  a 
shape  partly  of  a  canoe,  and  \ydri\y  of  a  gondola, 
It  was  not  calked  with  tarred  oakum,  and  payed 
with  pitch,  lest  the  rays  of  the  sun  should  injure 
it  while  upon  wheels  ;  but  it  was  nicely  jointed, 
and  dovetailed.  The  boat  part  was  firmly*  con- 
nected with  the  lower,  or  axletree,  or  wheel  part ;  — 
the  whole  was  so  constructed  that  the  four  wheels 
of  it  were  to  be  taken  off  when  we  came  to  a 
river,  and  placed  in  the  wagon,  while  the  tongue  or 
•  shaft  was  to  be  towed  ncross  by  a  rope.    Every  thing 

was  as  light  as  could   be  consistent  with  safety. 
.  Some  of  the  Cambridge  wags  said  it  was  a  boat 

I  begot  upon  a  wagon,  —  a  sort  of  mule,  neither 
^  horse  nor  ass,  —  a  mongrel,  or  as  one  of  the  coUe- 
(.  gians  said  it  was  a  thing  amphibious,  anatomically 
^!  constructed  like  some  equivocal  animals,  allowing  it 
to  crawl  upon  the  land,  or  to  swim  on  the  witer; 
and  he  therefore  thought  it  ought  to  be  denomina- 
ted an  amphibium.  This  would  have  gone  off  very 
well,  and  to  the  credit  of  the  learned  collegian, 
had  not  one  of  the  gang,  who  could  hardly  write 
his  own  name,  demurred  at  it ;  because  he  said 
that  it  reflected  not  back  the  honor  due  to  the  in- 
genious contriver  of  the  commodious  and  truly 
original  vehicle  ;  and  for  his  part,  he  thought  that 
if  they  meant  to  give  it  a  particular  name,  that 
should  redound  to  the  glory  of  the  inventor,  it  ought 
to  be  called  a  Nat-wyei/iium ;  and  this  was  in- 
stantaneously agreed  to  by  acclamation  !  Be  that 
88  it  may,  the  vehicle  did  not  disgrace  the  inven- 
tive genius  of  New  England.  This  good-humored 
raillery,  shows  the  opinion  of  indifferent  people, 
merely  lookers-on.     The  fact  was,  the  generality 


H 

%  11 


12 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


of  the  people  in  Cambridge  considered  it  a  haz- 
ardous enterprise,  and  considerably  notional.  About 
this  time  there  appeared  some  well  written  essays 
in  the  Boston  newspapers,  to  show  the  difficulty 
and  impracticability  of  the  scheme,  purporting  to 
doubt  the  assertions  of  Mr.  Hall  J.  Kelly  respect- 
ing the  value  and  pleasantness  of  the  Oregon  terri- 
tory. The  three  vehicles  contained  a  gross  of  axes, 
a  variety  of  articles,  or  ^\qoods^^  so  called,  calcu- 
lated for  the  Indian  market,  among  which  vermil- 
ion and  other  paints  were  not  forgotten,  glass 
beads,  small  looking-glasses,  and  a  number  of  taw- 
dry trinkets,  cheap  knives,  buttons,  nails,  hammers, 
and  a  deal  of  those  articles,  on  which  young  Indians 
of  both  sexes  set  a  high  value,  and  white  men  little 
or  none.  Such  is  the  spirit  of  trade  and  traffic, 
from  the  London  and  Amsterdam  merchant,  down 
to  an  Indian  trader  and  a  yankee  tin-ware  man  in 
his  jingling  go-cart ;  in  which  he  travels  through 
Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  to  vend  his  wares, 
and  cheat  the  Southerners,  and  bring  home  laugha- 
ble anecdotes  of  their  simplicity  and  ignorance,  to 
the  temporary  disgrace  of  the  common  people  of 
the  Northern  and  Eastern  part  of  the  Union,  where 
a  travelling  tin-man  dare  hardly  show  himself, — 
and  yet  is  held  up  in  the  South  as  the  real  New- 
England  character,  and  this  by  certain  white  peo- 
ple who  know  the  use  of  letters ! 

The  company  were  uniform  in  their  dress.  Each 
one  wore  a  coarse  woollen  jacket  and  pantaloons,  a 
striped  cotton  shirt,  and  cowhide  boots :  every  man 
had  a  musket,  most  of  them  rifles,  all  of  them 
bayonets  in  a  broad  belt,  together  with  a  large 
clasped  knife  for  eating  and  common  purposes.  The 
Captain  and  one  or  two  more  added  pistols ;    but 


St 

tl 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


13 


»/ 


every  one  had  in  his  belt  a  small  axe.  This  uni- 
formity had  a  pleasing; effect,  which,  together  with 
their  curious  wagons,  was  noticed  with  commen- 
dation in  the  Baltimore  newspapers,  as  a  striking 
contrast  with  the  family  emigrants  of  husband, 
wife,  and  children,  who  have  for  thirty  years  and 
more  passed  on  to  the  Ohio,  KentU(rky,  and  other 
territories.  The  whole  bore  an  aspect  of  energy, 
good  contrivance,  and  competent  n)eaus.  I  forgot 
to  mention  that  we  carried  tents,  camp-kettles,  and 
the  common  utensils  for  cooking  victuals,  as  our 
plan  was  to  live  like  soldiers,  and  to  avoid,  as  much 
as  possible,  inns  and  taverns. 

The  real  and  avowed  object  of  this  hardy-look- 
ing enterprise  was  to  go  to  the  river  Columbia, 
otherwise  called  the  river  Oregon,  or  river  of  the 
fVest,  which  empties  by  a  very  wide  mouth  into 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  there  and  thereabouts  com- 
mence a  fur  trade  by  trafficking  with  the  Indians,  as 
well  as  beaver  and  other  hunting  by  ourselves.  We 
went  upon  shares,  and  each  one  paid  down  so  much ; 
and  our  association  was  to  last  during  five  years. 
Each  man  paid  our  Leader  forty  dollars.  Cap- 
tain Wyeth  was  our  Treasurer,  as  well  as  Com- 
mander; and  all  the  expenses  of  our  travelling  on 
wheels,  and  by  water  in  steam-boats,  were  defray- 
ed by  our  Leader,  to  whom.we  all  promised  fidelity 
and  obedience.  For  twenty  free-born  New-England 
men,  brought  up  in  a  sort  of  Indian  freedom,  to  be 
bound  together  to  obey  a  leader  in  all  thiif^s  reason- 
able, without  something  like  articles  of  war,  was, 
to  say  the  least  of  it,  a  hazardous  experiment. 
The  Captain  and  crew  of  a  Nantucket  whaling 
ship  come  nearest  to  such  an  association ;  for  in 
this  case  each  man  runs  that  great  risk  of  his  life, 


14 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


in  voluntarily  attacking  and  killing  a  whale,  which 
could  not  be  expected  from  men  hired  by  the  day, 
like  soldiers ;  so  much  stronger  does  association 
for  gain  operate,  than  ordinary  wages.  As  fighting 
Indians  from  behind  trees  and  rocks  is,  next  in  point 
of  courage,  to  attacking  a  whale,  the  monarch  of 
the  main,  in  his  own  element,  a  common  partner- 
ship is  the  only  scheme  for  achieving  and  securing 
such  dangerous  purposes. 

We  left  the  city  of  Boston,  1st  of  March,  1832, 
and  encamped  on  one  of  the  numerous  islands 
in  its  picturesque  harbour,  where  we  remained 
ten  days,  by  way  of  inuring  ourselves  to  the 
tented  field;  and  on  the  11th  of  the  same 
month  we  hoisted  sail  for  Baltimore,  where  we 
arrived  after  a  passage  of  fifteen  days,  not  without 
experiencing  a  snow-storm,  severe  cold,  and  what 
the  landsmen  considered  a  hard  gale,  at  which  I, 
who  had  been  one  voyage  to  sea,  did  not  wonder. 
It  made  every  man  on  board  look  serious ;  and 
glad  were  we  to  be  set  on  shore  at  the  fair  city  of 
Baltimore,  in  which  are  to  be  found  a  great  num- 
ber of  merchants,  traders,  and  mechanics  from 
diflerent  parts  of  New  England,  and  where  of 
course  there  are  none,  or  very  few,  of  those  ridicu- 
lous prejudices  against  what  they  call  Yankees,  that 
are  observable  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas. 

At  Baltimore  our  amphibious  carriages  excited 
great  attention,  and  I  may  add,  our  whole  company 
was  an  object  of  no  small  curiosity  and  respect. 
This,  said  they,  is  ''  Yankee  all  over!''''  —  bold  en- 
terprise, neatness,  and  good  contrivance.  As  we 
carefully  avoided  the  expense  of  inns  and  taverns, 
we  marched  two  miles  out  of  Baltimore,  and  there 
encamped  during  four  days ;  and  then  we  put  our 


. 


ft 


i 


VVYETh's    '  3EGON  EXPEDITION. 


15 


>;i 


wagons  into  the  cars  on  the  rail-road  ;  which  ex- 
tends from  thence  sixty  miles,  which  brought  us  to 
the  foot  of  the  Alleghany  mountains.     Quitting  the 
rail-road  at  the  foot  of  the  Alleghany,  we  encoun- 
tered that  mountain.     Here  we  experienced  a  de- 
gree of  inhospitality  not  met  with  among  the  sava- 
ges.    The   Innkeepers,  when   they  found  that  we 
came  from  New  England,  betrayed  an  unwilling- 
ness to  accommodate   Yankees,  from  a   ridiculous 
idea,  that  the  common  people,  so  nicknamed,  were 
too  shrewd  at  a  bargain  and   trading,   for  a  slow 
and  straight-forward   Dutchman  ;   for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  this  mountainous  region,   were  generally 
sons  and  grandsons  of   the   Dutch    and   German 
first  settlers ;  and  it  cannot  be  denied  and  concealed, 
that  the  New  England  land-jobbers  were  in  their 
bargains  too  hard  for  the  torpid  Dutchmen,  who, 
it  is  true,  loved  money  as  much  as  any  people,  yet 
when  they,  or  their  fathers  had  been  the  sufferers 
from  a  set  of  roving  sharpers,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
an  hereditary  prejudice  should  descend  with  ex- 
aggeration and  aggravation  from  father  to  son,  and 
that  iheir  resentment  should  visit  their  innocent 
sons  to  the  third  and   fourth  generation.     No  one 
pretends  to   mention  any   fact  or  deed,  in  which 
those   Dutch  foreigners  were  defrauded  of   their 
rights  and  dues ;   and  all  that  can   be,  with  truth, 
said,  was,  that  the  land-speculators  from-  Connecti- 
cut   and    Massachusetts    were    to   New-England 
what  Yorkshire   men  are   thought  to  be  to  the  rest 
of  the  people  of  England,  a  race  more  sharp  and 
quick-sighted  than  their  neighbours,  —  and  with  a 
sort  of  constitutional  good  humor,  called  /?/m,  they 
could  twist  that  uneducated  progeny  of  a  German 
stock  around  their  fingers ;  —  hence  their  reluctance 


16 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


It 


i! 
!! 


;y 


to  have  any  thing  to  do  with  men,  whose  grand- 
fathers were  too  knowing  for  them.  You  never 
hear  the  French  or  the  English  complaining  of  the 
over-shrewdness  of  the  New-England  people. 
They  accord  very  well  together,  and  very  frequent- 
ly intermarry.  No,  it  is  the  Dutch,  and  the  de- 
scendants of  transported  convicts,  who  sneer  at 
those  they  call  Yankees,  whom  their  fathers  feared, 
and  of  course  hated. 
\  At  one  public  ivouse  on  the  mountains  near  which 
we  halted,  the  master  of  it,  learning  that  we  came 
from  Boston,  refused  us  any  refreshment  and  lodg- 
ing. He  lo(rked  up  his  bar-room,  put  the  key  in 
his  pocket,  went  out,  and  came  back  with  four  or 
fixe  of  his  neighbours,  when  the  disagreement  ran 
so  high,  that  the  tavern-keeper  and  the  Yankee 
Captain  each  seized  his  rifle.  The  latter  pointing 
to  the  other's  sign  before  his  door,  demanded  both 
lodging  and  refreshment,  as  the  legal  condition  of 
his  tavern- license  ;  *  and  the  dispute  ended  in  our 
Captain's  sleeping  in  the  house  with  three  of  his 
party,  well  armed,  determined  to  defend  their  per- 
sons, and  to  insist  on  their  rights  as  peaceable  and 
unoffending  travellers,  while  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany bivouacked  near  their  wagons,  and  reposed 
themselves,  like  veteran  soldiers,  in  their  tents  and 
wagons. 

We  gladly  departed  from  the  inhospitable  Alle- 
ghany or  Apalachian  mountains,  which  extend  from 
the  river  St.  Lawrence  to  the  confines  of  Georgia, 

•Taverners  are  by  law  lo  be  provided  with  suitable  bedding  for 
traveilerii.  and  stables  and  provisions  for  horses  &n(\  cattle. 
Brownsville  is  a  flourishing  town  situated  on  the  point,  where  the 
great  Cumherlmid  road  strikes  the  head  of  navigation  of  the  Mo- 
nongahela,  and  basloog  beeD  ft  place  of  embarkation  for  emigrants 
for  the  West. 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


17 


and  which  run  nearly  parallel  to  the  sea-shore  from 
sixty  to  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles  I'roni  it, 
and  dividing  the  rivers,  which  flow  into  the 
Atlantic  on  the  east,  from  those  that  run  into 
the  lakes  and  into  the  Mississippi  on  the  west. 
The  part  we  passed  was  in  the  state  of  Pennsylva- 
nia. Our  next  stretch  was  for  the  river  Monon- 
gahela,  where  we  took  the  steamboat  for  Piits- 
ourg.  This  town  has  grown  in  size  and  wealth, 
in  a  few  years,  surprisingly.  It  is  two  hundred 
and  thirty  miles  from  Baltimore ;  three  hundred 
from  Philadelphia.  It  is  built  on  a  point  of  land 
jutting  out  towards  the  river  Ohio,  and  washed  on 
each  side  by  the  Alleghany  and  Monongahela, 
which  rivers  uniting  are  lost  in  the  noble  Ohio.  It 
was  originally  a  fortress  built  by  the  French,  called 
Fort  du  Qiiesne ;  being  afterwards  taken  by  the 
English  in  1759,  it  was  called  {ovt  Piit^  in  honor  of 
the  famous  William  Pitt,  afterwards  Earl  of  Chat- 
ham, under  whose  administration  it  was  taken  from 
the  French,  together  with  all  Canada.  On  this 
spot  a  city  has  been  reared  by  the  Americans, 
bearing  the  name  of  Pittsburg,  which  has  thriven 
in  a  surprising  manner  by  its  numerous  manufacto- 
ries in  ^lass,  as  well  as  in  all  the  metals  in  common 
use.  To  call  it  the  Birmingham  of  America  is 
to  underrate  its  various  industry  ;  and  to  call  the 
English  Birmingham  Pittsburg,  would  be  to  con- 
fer upon  that  town  additional  honor;  not  but  what 
the  British  Birmingham  is  by  far  the  most  pleasant 
place  to  live  in.  Pittsburg  is  the  region  of  iron 
and  fossil  coal,  of  furnaces,  glass-works,  and  a 
variety  of  such  like  manufactures.  This  town 
has  somewhat  the  color  of  a  coal-pit,  or  of  a  black- 
smith's shop,     The  wonder  is,  that  any  gentleman 

2* 


I 


M 


"M 


18 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


of  property  should  ever  think  of  huilding  a  costly 
dvvellinj^-house,  with  corresponding  furniture,  in  the 
coal  region  of  the  western  world  ;  but  there  is  no 
disputing  de  gustibus  —  Chaciin  a  son  gout.  The 
rivers  and  the  surrounding  country  are  delightful, 
and  the  more  so  from  the  contrast  between  them 
and  thai  hornet's  nest  of  bustle  and  dirt,  the  rich 
capital.  Thousands  of  miserable  culprits  are  doom- 
ed to  delve  in  deep  mines  of  silver,  gold,  and 
quicksilver  among  the  Spaniards  for  their  crimes; 
but  here  they  are  all  freemen,  who  choose  to 
breathe  smoke,  and  swallow  dirt,  for  the  sake  of 
clean  dollars  and  shining  eagles.  Hence  it  is  that 
the  Pittsburgh  workmen  appear,  when  their  faces 
are  washed,  with  the  ruddiness  of  high  health,  the 
plenitude  of  good  spirits,  and  the  confidence  of 
freemen. 

From  the  busy  city  of  thriving  Pittsburg  our 
next  important  movement  was  down  the  Ohio. 
We  accordingly  embarked  in  a  very  large  steam- 
boat called  The  Freedom  ;  and  soon  found  ourselves, 
bag  and  baggage  very  much  at  our  ease  and  satis- 
facrtion,  on  board  a  truly  wonderful  floating  inn, 
hotel,  or  tavern,  for  such  are  our  steam-boats.  Noth- 
ing of  the  kind  can  surpass  the  beauty  of 
this  winding  river,  with  its  fine  back-ground 
of  hills  of  all  shapes  and  colors,  according  to  the 
advancement  of  vegetation  from  the  shrubs  to  the 
tallest  trees.  But  the  romantic  scenery  on  both 
sides  of  the  Ohio  is  so  various  and  so  captivat- 
ing to  a  stranger,  that  it  requires  the  talents  of  a 
painter  to  give  even  a  faint  idea  of  the  picture ; 
and  the  effect  on  my  mind  was,  not  to  estimate 
them  as  I  ought,  but  to  feed  my  deluded  imagina- 
tion with  the  belief  that  we  should  find  on  the 


WYETH  S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


19 


» 


Missouri,  and  on  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  Co- 
lumbia rivt^r,  ol)jects  as  much  finer  than  the  Ohio 
afforded,  as  this  matchless  river  exreedetl  (^ur 
Merrimac  or  Kennebeck :  and  so  it  is  with  the 
youth  of  both  sexes;  not  satisfied  wuh  the  present 
gifts  of  nature,  they  pant  after  the  untritd  scene, 
which  ima<^ination  is  continually  bodying  forth,  and 
time  as  constantly  dissipating. 

The  distance  from  Pittsburg  to  the  Mississippi  \ 
is  about  one  thousand  miles.  Hutchins  estimated  \ 
it  at  one  thousand  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight, — 
Dr.  Drake  at  only  nine  hundred  and  forty-nine. 
Wheeling  is  a  town  of  some  importance.  Here 
the  great  national  road  into  the  interior  from  the 
city  of  Washington,  meets  that  of  Zanesville, 
Chiliicothe,  Columbus,  and  Cincinnati.  It  is  the 
best  point  to  aim  at  in  very  low  stages  of  the  wa- 
ter, and  from  thence  boats  may  go  at  all  seasons  of 
the  year.  We  passed  Marietta,  distinguished  for 
its  remarkable  remains  of  mounds,  and  works,  re- 
sembling modern  fortifications,  but  doubtless  the 
labor  of  the  ancient  aboriginals,  of  whom  there 
is  now  no  existing  account ;  but  by  these  works,  and 
articles  found  near  them,  they  must  have  belonged 
to  a  race  of  men  farther  advanced  in  arts  and 
civilization  than  the  present  Indians  in  that  region, 
—  a  people  who,  we  may  well  suppose,  were  the 
ancestors  of  the  Mexicans.  Yet  we  see  at  this 
time  little  more  than  log-houses  belonging  to  miser- 
able tenants  of  white  people.  All  the  sugar  used 
by  the  people  here  is  obtained  from  the  maple  tree. 
Fossil  coal  is  found  along  the  banks.  There  is  a 
creek  pouring  forth  Petroleum,  about  one  hundred 
miles  from  Pittsburg  on  the  Alleghany,  called  Oil 
Creek,  which  will  blaze  on  the  application  of  a 


"71 

■;  ■ij 
>     l\ 


-i^J,'.' 


llvtl 


'nix 

ll 


20 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


match.  This  is  not  uncommon  in  countries  abound- 
ing in  bituminous  coal.  Nitre  is  ibund  wherever 
there  are  suital)le  caves  and  caverns  for  it-s  collection. 
The  people  here  are  rather  boisterous  in  their  man- 
ners, and  intemperate  in  their  habits,  by  what  we 
saw  and  heard,  more  so  than  on  the  other  side  of  the 
river  where  shivery  is  prohibited.  Indeed  slavery 
carries  a  black  moral  mark  with  it  visible  on  those 
whose  skins  are  naturallv  of  a  different  color:  and 
Mr.  Jefferson's  opinion  of  the  influence  of  slavery 
on  the  whites,  justifies  our  retnark. 

We  stopped  one  day  and  night  at  the  flourishing 
town  of  Cincinnati,  the  largest  city  in  the  Western 
country,  although  laid  out  so  recently  as  1788.  It 
is  twenty  miles  above  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Mi- 
ami, and  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  miles  below 
Pittsburg.  Jt  appears  to  great  advantage  iVom 
the  river,  the  ground  inclining  gradually  to  the  wa- 
ter. Three  of  us  had  an  evidence  of  that  by  a 
miscbitivous  trick  for  which  we  deserved  punish- 
ment. We  were  staring  about  the  fine  city  that 
has  risen  up  with  a  sort  of  rapid,  mushroom  growth, 
surprising  to  every  one  who  sees  it,  and  who  con- 
siders that  it  is  not  more  than  forty  years  old.  In 
the  evening  we  went  into  a  jiublic  house,  where 
we  treated  ourselves  with  that  sort  of  refreshment 
which  inspires  fun,  frolic,  and  mischief.  We  re- 
mained on  shore  till  so  late  an  hour  that  every  body 
appeared  to  have  gone  to  bed,  when  we  set  out  to 
return  to  our  steam-boat.  In  our  way  to  it  we 
passed  by  a  store,  in  the  front  of  which  stood  three 
barrels  of  lamp-oil,  at  the  head  of  a  fine  sloping 
street.  The  evil  spirit  of  mischief  put  it  into  our 
heads  to  set  them  a  rolling  down  the  inclined  plane 
to  the   river.      No  sooner  hinted,  than  executed. 


WYETH'S  OREGON   EXPEDITIOiN. 


21 


We  set  all  three  a  running,  and  we  ran  after  them ; 
and  what  may  have  been  lucky  for  us,  they  were 
recovered  next  day  whole.  Had  there  been 
legal  inquisition  made  for  them,  we  had  determined 
to  plead  character^  that  we  were  from  Boston,  the 
land  of  steady  habits  and  good  principles,  and  that 
it  must  have  been  some  gentlemen  Southerners, 
with  whose  characters  for  nightly  frolics,  we,  who 
lived  within  sound  of  the  bell  of  the  University  of 
Cambridge  were  well  acquainted.  The  owners  of 
the  oil  came  down  to  the  steam-boat,  and  carried 
back  their  property  without  making  a  rigid  exami- 
nation for  the  offenders ;  without  suspecting  that 
prudent  New-England  young  men  would  indulge 
in  a  wanton  piece  of  fun,  where  so  much  was  at 
stake.  But  John  Bull  and  Jonathan  are  queer 
fellows. 

From  Cincinnati  to  St.  Louis,  we  pxpeilenced 
some  of  those  disagreeable  occurrences,  that  usually 
happen  to  democratical  adventurers.  Our  Captain, 
to  lessen  the  expenses  of  the  expedition,  had  bar- 
gained with  the  Captain  of  the  steam-boat,  that  we 
of  his  band  should  assist  in  taking  on  board  wood 
from  the  shore,  to  keep  our  boilers  from  cooling. 
Although  every  one  saw  the  absolute  necessity  of 
the  thing,  for  our  common  benefit  and  safety,  yet 
some  were  for  demurring  at  it,  as  not  previously  spe- 
cified and  agreed  upon.  Idleness  engenders  mutiny 
oftener  than  want.  In  scarcity  and  in  danger  men 
cling  together  like  gregarious  animals ;  but  as  soon 
as  an  enterprising  gang  can  sit  down,  as  in  a  steam- 
boat, with  nothing  to  do  but  to  find  fault,  they  are 
sure  to  become  discontented,  and  discontent  in- 
dulged leads  to  mutiny.  Whatever  I  thought 
then,  I  do  not  think  now  that  Captain  Wyeth  was 


■jf' 


22 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


['   I' 


ft 
li- 


lt  .f 


Ih   1 


to  blame  for  directing  his  followers  to  aid  in  wood- 
ing ;  nor  should  the  men  have  grumbled  at  it.  I 
now  am  of  opinion  that  our  aiding  in  wooding  the 
steam-boat  was  right,  reasonable,  and  proper. 
Every  man  of  us,  except  the  surgeon  of  the  com- 
pany, Dr.  Jacob  Wyeth,  ought,  on  every  principle 
of  justice  and  generosity,  to  have  given  that  as- 
sistance. 

Our  navijj;ation  from  Cincinnati  to  St.  Louis  was 
attended  with  circumstances  new,  interesting,  and 
very  often  alarming.  Passing  the  rapids  of  the 
Ohio,  or  falls  as  they  are  called,  between  the  In- 
diana territory  and  Kentucky,  was  sufficiently  ap- 
palling to  silence  all  grumbling.  These  falls,  or 
rapids  are  in  the  vicinity  of  Louisville,  Jefierson- 
ville,  Clarksville,  and  Shipping-port,  and  are  really 
terrific  to  an  inexperienced  farmer  or  mechanic. 
Our  Hell-gate  in  Long-Island  Sound  is  a  common 
brook  compared  with  them  ;  and  wheri  we  had 
passed  through  them  into  the  Mississippi,  the  as- 
semblage of  trees  in  the  river,  constituting  snags 
and  sawyers,  offered  themselves  as  a  species  of  risk 
and  danger,  which  none  of  us  had  ever  calculated 
on  or  dreamt  of.  We  knew  that  there  was  dan- 
ger in  great  storms,  of  huge  trees  blowing  down 
on  one's  head  ;  and  that  those  who  took  shelter 
under  them  in  a  thunder-storm,  risked  their  lives 
from  lightning ;  but  to  meet  destruction  from  trees 
in  an  immense  river,  seemed  to  us  a  danger  of 
life,  which  we  had  not  bargained  for,  and  entirely 
out  of  our  agreement  and  calculation.  We  had 
braced  ourselves  u|)  only  against  the  danger  of 
hostile  Indians,  and  enraged  beasts,  which  we 
meant  to  war  against.  Beyond  that,  all  was 
smooth  water  to  us.     The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  — " 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


23 


the  men  whom  Captain  Wyeth  had  collected  were 
not  the  sort  of  men  for  such  an  expedition. .  They 
were  too  much  on  an  equality  to  be  under  strict 
orders  like  soldiers.  Lewis  &  Clarke  were  very 
fortunate  in  the  men  they  had  under  them.  Major 
Long's  company  was,  in  a  great  degree,  military, 
and  yet  three  of  his  soldiers  deserted  him  at  one 
time,  and  a  fourth  soon  after. 

On  the  18th  of  April,  1832,  we  arrived  at  St.  Lou- 
is. As  we  had  looked  forward  to  this  town,  as  a  tem- 
porary resting-place,  we  entered  it  in  high  spirits, 
and  pleased  ourselves  with  a  notion  that  the  rest  of 
our  way  till  we  should  come  to  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains would  be,  if  not  down  hill,  at  least  on  a  level : 
but  we  counted  without  our  host. 

SL  Louis  was  founded  by  a  Frenchman  named 
Peter  la  Clade  in  1764,  eighty-four  years  after 
the  establishment  of  Fort  Creve-coeur  on  the  Illinois 
river ;  and  inhabited  entirely  by  Frenchmen  and 
the  decendants  of  Frenchmen,  who  had  carried  on 
for  the  most  part  a  friendly  and  lucrative  trade 
with  the  Indians.  But  since  the  vast  Western 
country  has  been  transferred  to  the  United  Slates, 
its  population  has  been  rapidly  increased  by  nu- 
merous individuals  and  families  from  different  parts 
of  the  Union ;  and  its  business  extended  by  enter- 
prising mechanics  and  merchants  from  the  New- 
England  States ;  and  its  wealth  greatly  augmented. 
The  old  part  of  St.  Louis  has  a  very  different  as- 
pect from  that  of  Cincinnati,  where  every  thing 
appears  neat,  and  new,  and  tasteful;  as  their  public 
buildings,  their  theatre,  and  spacious  hotels,  not 
forgetting  Madam  Trollope's  bazar,  or,  as  it  is 
commonly  called,  **  Trollope's  Folly,"  as  well  as 
its  spacious  streets,  numerous  coaches,  and  other 


111 

■  <i 


i.; 
'.<■  '1 


'm 


m 


24 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


hil 


li  H 


marks  of  rapid  wealth,  and  growing  luxury.  As 
St.  Louis  has  advanced  in  wealth,  magnitude,  and 
importance,  it  has  gradually  changed  the  French 
language  and  manners,  and  assumed  the  American. 
It  however  contains,  I  am  told,  many  of  the  old 
stock  that  are  very  respectahle  for  their  literary 
acquirements  and  polished  manners. 

We  shall  avoid,  as  we  have  avowed,  any  thing 
like  censure  of  Captain  Wy^th's  scheme  during  his 
absence;  but  when  we  arrived  at  St.  J.ouis,  we 
could  not  but  lament  his  want  of  information, 
respecting  the  best  means  of  obtaining  the  great 
objects  of  our  enterprise.  Here  we  were  con- 
strained to  sell  our  complicated  wagons  for  less 
than  half  what  they  originally  cost.  We  were 
convinced  that  they  were  not  calculated  for  the 
rough  roads,  and  rapid  streams  and  eddies  of  some 
of  the  rivers  we  must  necessarily  pass.  We  here 
thought  of  the  proverb,  "  that  men  never  do  a  thing 
right  the  first  time."  Captain  Wyeth  might  have 
learned  at  St.  Louis,  that  there'  were  two  wealthy 
gentlemen  who  resided  at  or  near  that  place,  who 
had  long  since  established  a  regular  trade  with  the 

Indians,  Mr.  M ,  and  a  young  person,  Mr.  S , 

and  that  a  stranger  could  hardly  compete  with  such 
established  traders.  The  turbulent  tribe,  called 
the  Black-foot  tribe,  had  long  been  supplied  with 
fire  arms  and  ammunition,  beads,  vermilion  and  other 
paints,  tobacco  and  scarlet  cloth,  from  two  or  three 
capital  traders  at,  or  near,  St.  Louis,  and  every 
article  most  saleable  with  the  Indians.  Both  par- 
ties knew  each  other,  and  had  confidence  in  each 
other ;  and  having  this  advantage  over  our  band  of 
adventurers,  it  does  not  appear  that  Mr.  Mackenzie, 
and  Mr.  Sublet  felt  any  apprehensions  or  jealousy 


■ 


t  - 


1 


WYETh's    OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


25 


As 

and 


I 


of  the  new  comers  from  Boston ;  but  treated  them 
with  friendship,  and  the  latter  with  contidonce  and 
cordiality  ;  the  former  gentleman  being,  in  a  man- 
ner, retired  from  business,  except  through  nume- 
rous agents..  He  owns  a  small  steam-boat  called 
the  Yellow  Stone,  the  name  of  one  of  the  branches 
of  the  Missouri  river.  Through  such  means  the 
Indians  are  supplied  with  all  they  want ;  and  they 
appeared  not  to  wish  to  have  any  thing  to  do  with 
any  one  else,  especially  the  adventurous  Yankees. 
These  old  established  traders  enjoy  a  friendly  in- 
fluence, or  prudent  command,  over  those  savages, 
that  seems  to  operate  to  the  exclusion  of  every 
one  else  ;  and  this  appeared  from  the  manner  in 
which  they  treated  us,  which  was  void  of  every 
thing  like  jealousy,  or  fear  of  rivalship.  Their 
policy  was  to  incorporate  us  with  their  own  troop. 
We  put  our  goods,  and  other  baggage  on  board 
the  steam-boat  Otter,  and  proceeded  two  hundred 
and  sixty  miles  up  the  Missouri  river,  which  is  as 
far  as  the  white  people  have  any  settlemenis.  We 
were  obliged  to  proceed  very  slowly  and  carefully 
on  account  of  the  numerous  snags  and  sawyers 
with  which  this  river  abounds.  They  are  trees 
that  have  been  loosened,  and  washed  away  from 
the  soft  banks  of  the  river.  They  are  detained 
by  sand-banks,  or  by  other  trees,  |hat  have  floated 
down  some  time  before.  Those  of  them  whose 
sharp  branches  point  opposite  the  stream  are  the 
snogs,  against  which  boats  are  often  imj)elled,  as 
they  are  not  visible  above  water,  and  many  are 
sunk  by  the  wounds  these  make  in  their  bows. 
The  sawyers  are  also  held  fast  by  their  roots,  while 
the  body  of  the  tree  whips  up  and  down,  alternate- 
ly visible  and  concealed  beneath  the  surfjice.    These 

3 


1 


26 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


I      f 

t    '■  > 


are  the  chief  terrors  of  the  Missouri  and  the  Missis- 
sippi rivers.  As  to  crocodiles  they  are  little  re- 
garded, being  more  afraid  of  man  than  he  of  them. 
On  account  of  these  snags  and  sawyers,  boatmen 
avoid  passing  in  the  night,  and  are  obliged  to  keep  a 
sharp  look  out  in  the  day-time.  The  sawyers  when 
forced  to  the  bottom  or  near  it  by  a  strong  current, 
or  by  eddies,  rise  again  with  such  force  that  few 
boats  can  withstand  the  shock.  The  course  of  the 
boat  was  so  tediously  slow,  that  many  of  us  conclud- 
ed to  get  out  and  walk  on  the  banks  of  the  river. 
This,  while  it  gave  us  agreeable  exercise,  was  of 
some  service  in  lightening  our  boat,  for  with  other 
passengers  from  St.  Louis,  we  amounted  to  a  con- 
siderable crew.  The  ground  was  level,  and  free 
from  underwood.  We  passed  plenty  of  deer,  wild 
turkeys,  and  some  other  wild  fowl  unknown  to  us, 
and  expected  to  find  it  so  all  the  way. 

We  arrived  at  a  town  or  settlement  called  Inde- 
pendence. This  is  the  last  white  settlement  on 
our  route  to  the  Oregon,  and  this  circumstance 
gave  a  different  cast  to  our  peregrination,  and  ope- 
rated not  a  little  on  our  hopes,  and  our  fears,  and 
our  imaojinations.  Some  of  ')ur  company  began  to 
ask  each  other  some  serious  questions ;  such  as, 
Where  arc  we  going?  and  what  are  we  going  for?  and 
sundry  other  questions,  which  would  have  been  wiser 
had  we  asked  them  before  we  left  Cambridge,  and 
ruminated  well  on  the  answers.  But  Westivard 
ho!  was  our  watchword,  and  checked  all  doubts, 
and  silenced  all  expressions  of  fear. 

Just  before  we  started  from  this  place,  a  com- 
pany of  sixty-two  in  number  arrived  from  St.  Lou- 
is, under  the  command  of  Hilliam  Sublet,  Esq,^ 
an  experienced  Indian  trader,  bound,  like  ourselves. 


) 


\ 


WTETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


27 


•j 


1 


to  the  American  Alps,  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  we  joined  company  with  him,  and  it  was  very 
lucky  that  we  did.  Our  minds  were  not  entirely  easy. 
We  were  about  to  leave  our  peaceable  country- 
men, from  whom  we  had  received  many  atten- 
tions and  mm  h  kindness,  to  go  into  a  dark  region  of 
savages,  of  whose  customs,  manners,  and  language, 
we  were  entirely  ignorant,  —  to  go  we  knew  not 
whither,  —  to  encounter  we  knew  not  what.  We 
had  already  sacrificed  our  amphiliious  wagons,  the  re- 
sult of  so  much  pains  and  cost.  Here  two  of  our  com- 
pany left  us,  named  Kilham  and  Weeks.  Whether 
they  had  any  real  cause  of  dissatisfaction  with  our 
Captain,  or  whether  they  only  made  that  an  excuse 
to  quit  the  expedition  and  return  home  early,  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say.  1  suspect  the  abandonment  of  our 
travelling  vehicles  cooled  their  courage.  We  rested 
at  Independence  ten  days  ;  and  purchased,  by  Cap- 
tain Sublet's  advice,  two  yoke  of  oxen,  and  fifteea 
sheep,  as  we  learnt  that  we  ought  not  to  rely  en- 
tirely upon  transient  game  from  our  fire-arms  for 
sustenance,  especially  as  we  were  now  going  among 
a  savage  people  who  would  regard  us  with  suspi- 
cion and  dread,  and  treat  us  accordingly.  From 
this  place  we  travelled  about  twenty-fi'  e  miles  a 
day. 

Nothing  occurred  worth  recording,  till  we  arrived 
at  the  first  Indian  settlement,  which  was  about 
seventy  miles  from  Independence.  They  appeared 
to  us  a  harmless  people,  and  not  averse  to  our 
passing  through  their  country.  Their  persons 
were  rather  under  size,  and  their  complexion  dark. 
As  they  lived  near  the  frontier  of  the  whiles,  they 
were  not  unacquainted  with  their  usages  and  cus- 
toms.    They  have  cultivated  spots  or  little  farms, 


*n\ 


m 


■•>\,4| 
'   *1 


28 


WYETH'S  OREGOiN  EXPEDITION. 


on  which   thev 


n$. 


Th 


«y 


If! 


I 


(1 


raise  corn  and  pumpki 
generally  go  out  once  a  year  to  hunt,  accompanied 
by  their  women  ;  and  on  killing  the  Butilalo,  or 
Bison,  what  they  do  not  use  on  the  spot,  they  dry 
to  eat  through  the  winter.  To  prevent  a  famine, 
however,  it  is  their  custom  to  keep  a  large  number 
of  dogs  ;  and  they  eat  them  as  we  do  mutton  and 
lamb.  This  tribe  have  imitated  the  white  people 
in  having  fixed  and  stationary  houses.  They  stick 
poles  in  the  ground  in  a  circular  form,  and  tover 
them  with  buffalo- skins,  and  put  earth  over  the 
whole,  leaving  at  the  top  an  aperture  for  the  smoke, 
but  small  enough  to  be  covered  with  a  bufifalo-skin  in 
case  of  rain  or  snow.  —  We  found  here  little  game  ; 
but  honey-bees  in  abundance. 

We  travelled  on  about  a  hundred  miles  farther, 
when  we  came  to  a  large  prairie,  which  name  the 
French  have  given  to  extensive  tracts  of  land, 
most!)  level,  destitute  of  trees,  and  covered  with 
tall,  coarse  grass.  They  are  generally  dreary  plains, 
void  of  water,  and  rendered  more  arid  by  the  In- 
dian custom  of  setting  fire  to  the  high  grass  once  or 
twice  a  vear  to  start  the  game  that  has  taken  shelter 
there,  which  occasions  a  hard  crust  unfavorable  to 
any  vegetable  more  substantial  than  grass.  At 
this  unproniising  spot,  three  more  of  our  company 
took  French  leave  of  us,  there  bcino:,  it  seems, 
dissatisfaction  on  both  sides;  for  each  complained 
of  the  other.  The  names  of  the  seceders  were 
Livermore,  Bell,  and  Griswell.  In  sixteen  days 
more  we  reached  the  River  La  Platte,  the  water 
of  which  is  foul  and  muddy.  We  were  nine  days 
passing  this  dreary  prairie.  We  were  seven  and 
twenty  days  winding  onr  way  along  the  borders  of 
the  La  Platte,  which  river  we  could  not  leave  on 


I, 


■\ 


m 


I 


1 


WYETH^S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


29 


account  of  the  scarcity  of  water  in  the  dry  and 
comfortless  plains.  Here  we  slaughtered  the  last 
of  our  live  stock,  and  at  night  we  came  to  that 
region  where  buffaloes  are  often  to  be  found  ;  but 
we  suffered  some  sharp  gnawings  of  hunger  before 
we  obtained  one,  and  experienced  some  foretaste 
of  difficulties  to  come. 

The  Missouri  Territory  is  a  vast  wilderness,  con- 
sisting of  immense  plains,  destitute  of  wood  and 
of  water,  except  on  the  edges  of  streams  that  are 
found  near  the  turbid  La  Platte.  This  river  owes 
its  source  to  the  Rocky  mountains,  and  runs  pretty 
much  through  the  territory,  without  enlivening  or 
fructifying  this  desert.  Some  opinion  may  be  form- 
ed of  it  by  saying  that  for  the  space  of  six  hundred 
miles,  we  may  be  s>aid  to  have  been  deprived  of 
the  benefits  of  two  of  the  elements, ^r^  and  water. 
Here  were,  he  sure,  buffaloes,  but  after  we  had  killed 
them  we  had  no  wood  or  vegetables  of  any  kind 
wherewith  to  kindle  a  fire  for  cooking.  We 
were  absolutely  compelled  to  dry  the  dung  of  the 
buffalo  as  the  best  article  we  could  procure  for 
cooking  our  course  beef.  That  grumbling,  dis- 
content, and  dejection  should  spring  up  amongst 
us,  was  what  no  one  can  be  surprised  at  learning. 
We  were  at  times  very  miserable,  and  our  com- 
mander could  be  no  less  so ;  but  we  had  put  our 
hands  to  the  plough,  and  most  of  us  were  too 
stuffy  to  flinch,  and  sneak  off  for  home  without 
reaching  the  Rocky  Mountains ;  still  hunger  is 
hunger,  and  the  young  and  the  strong  feel  the 
greatest  call  for  food.  Every  one  who  goes  to  sea 
may  lay  his  account  for  coming  to  short  allowance, 
from  violent  storms,  head  winds,  damaged  vessel, 
and  the  like ;    but  for  a  band  of  New-England 

3* 


/•'!) 
'M 


'r  ' 


I 
4* 


■m 


i 
I  -I 

IP' 


f^ 


30 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


Uu 


men  to  come  to  short  allowance  upon  land,  with 
guns,  powder,  and  shot,  was  a  new  idea  to  our 
Oregon  adventurers,  who  had  not  prepared  for  it  in 
the  article  of  hard  bread,  or  flour,  or  potatoes,  or 
that  snug  and  wholesome  article,  salt  fish,  so  plen- 
ty at  Marhlehead  and  Cape  Ann,  and  so  convenient 
to  carry.  When  the  second  company  shall  march 
from  the  seat  ot*  science,  Cambridge,  we  would 
advise  them  to  pack  up  a  few  quintals  of  salt  fish, 
and  a  fevy  pounds  of  ground  sago,  and  salep,  as  a 
teaspoonful  of  it  mixed  with  boiling  water,  will 
make  three  pints  of  good  gruel,  and  also  a  compe- 
tent supply  of  portable  soup. 

Buffaloes  were  plenty  enough.  We  saw  uiem  in 
frightful  droves,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  ap- 
pearing at  a  distance  as  if  the  ground  itself  was 
moving  like  the  sea.  Such  large  armies  of  them 
have  no  fear  of  man.  They  will  travel  over  him, 
and  make  nothing  of  him.  Our  company  after 
killing  ten  or  twelve  of  them,  never  enjoyed 
the  benefit  of  more  than  two  of  them,  the  rest 
being  carried  off  by  the  wolves  before  morning. 
Beside  the  scarcity  of  meat,  we  suffered  for  want 
of  good  and  wholesome  water.  The  La  Platte  is 
warm  and  muddy  ;  and  the  use  of  it  occasioned  a 
diarroeha  in  several  of  our  company.  Dr.  Jacob 
Wycth,  brother  of  the  Captain,  suffered  not  a  little 
from  this  cause.  —  Should  the  reader  wonder  how 
we  proceeded  so  rapidly  on  our  way  without  stop- 
ping to  inquire,  he  must  bear  in  mind  that  we  were 
still  under  the  guidance  of  Captain  Sublet,  who 
knew  every  step  of  the  way,  and  had  actually  re- 
sided four  years  in  different  green  valleys  that  are 
here  and  there  in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  To  me 
it  seems  that  we  must  have  perished  for  want  of 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITIOxN. 


31 


sustenance  in  the  deserts  of  Missouri,  had  we  been 
by  ourselves.  It  may  have  been  good  policy  in 
Sublet,  to  attach  us  to  him.  He  proliably  saw 
our  rawness  in  an  adventure  so  ill  provided  for  as 
ours  actually  was.  But  for  him  we  should 
hardly  have  [>rovided  ourselves  with  live  stock; 
and  but  for  him  we  should  probably  never  have 
reached  the  American  Alps.  By  this  time  every 
man  began  to  think  for  himself. 

We  travelled  six  days  on  the  south  branch  of  the 
La  Platte,  and  then  crossed  over  to  the  north  branch, 
and  on  this  branch   of    it,   we  travelled   eighteen 
days.     But  the  first  three  days  we  could   not   find 
sufficient  articles  of  food  ;  and  what  added  to  our 
distress  was  the  sickness  of  several  of  our  company. 
We  noticed  many  trails  of  the  savages,  but  no  In- 
dians.    The   nearer  we  approached  the  range  of 
the  mountains  the  thicker  were  the   trees.      After 
travelling  twelve  days  longer  we  came  to  the  Black 
Hills.     They  are  so  called  from  their  thick  growth 
of  cedar.     Here  is  the  region  of  rattle  snakes,  and 
the  largest  and  fiercest  bears,  —  a  very  formidable 
animal,  which  it  is  not  prudent  for  a  man  to  attack 
alone.     I  have  known  some  of  the  best  hunters  of 
Sublet's  company  to  fire   five   an   six  balls  at  one 
before  he  fell.     We  were  four  days  in  crossing  these 
dismal  looking  hills.     They  would  be  called  moun- 
tains, were  they  not  in  the  neighbourhood   of  the 
Rocky   Mountains,    whose    peaks    overtop   every 
thing,  and  elevate  themselves  into  the   region  of 
everlasting  frost  and  snow.     Our  sick  sufifered  ex- 
tremely in   ascending   these   hills,  some    of  them 
slipped  off  the  horses  and  mules  they  rode  on,  from 
sheer  weakness,  brought  on  by  the  bowel  com- 
plaint already  mentioned;  among  these  was  Dr. 


32 


WYETH  3  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


!    I 


Wyeth,  our  Captain's  brotlier,  who  never  had  a 
constitution  fit  to  encounter  such  an  expedition. 
Andyet  we  could  not  leave  them  under  the  care  of 
a  niiin,  or  two  or  three  men,  and  ])ass  on  without 
them,  to  follow  us,  when  they  were  able.  It  was 
to  me  particularly  grievous  to  think  that  he,  who 
was  to  take  care  of  the  health  of  the  company,  was 
the  tirst  who  was  disabled  from  helping  himself  or 
others,  and  this  one  a  blood  relation.  It  required 
a  man  of  a  firmer  make  than  Dr.  Jacob  Wveth  to 
go  through  such  a  mountainous  region  as  the  one 
we  were  in  :  a  man  seldom  does  a  thing  right  the 
first  time. 

From  the  North  branch  we  crossed  over  to  what 
was  called  Sweet-water  Creek.  This  water  being 
cool,  clear,  and  pleasant,  proved  a  good  remedy 
for  our  sick,  as  their  bowel  complaints  were  brought 
on  and  aggravated  by  the  warm,  muddy  v»'aters  of 
the  Missouri  territory  we  had  passed  through.  We 
came  to  a  huge  rock  in  the  shape  of  a  bowl  upside 
down.  It  bore  the  nanie  of  Independence,  from, 
it  is  said,  being  the  resting-place  of  Lewis  and 
Clarke  on  the  4th  of  July  ;  but  according  to  the 
printed  journal  of  those  meritorious  travellers,  they 
had  not  reached,  or  entered,  the  American  Alps  on 
the  day  of  that  memorable  epoch.  Whether  we 
are  to  consider  the  rock  Independence  as  fairly  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  let  others  determine.  We 
had  now  certainly  begun  our  ascent  to  those  lofty 
legions,  previous  to  which  we  had  to  pass  the  chief 
branch  of  the  river  La  Platte ;  but  we  had  no  boat 
whatever  for  the  purpose  ;  and  had  we  not  been 
in  the  company  of  Captain  Sublet,  it  is  hard  to  say 
what  we  should  have  done  short  of  going  a  great 
way    round.      Here  I,  and  others   were  entirely 


I  -^ 


I 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


33 


'f, 


convinced  that  we  were  enj^n^cd  in  an  expedition 
withoui  being  provided  with  the  means  to  accom- 
.  plish  it.  Our  boats  and  wagons  we  had  disposed 
of  at  St.  Louis,  and  here  we  were  on  the  banks  of 
a  river  without  even  a  canoe.  Captain  Clarke 
brought  his  canoes  to  the  foot  of  the  range  of 
mountains  and  there  left  them.  The  reader  will 
understand  that  not  only  the  Missouri  river,  but  the 
Yellow-stone  river,  the  La  Platte,  and  many  other 
smaller  ones  commence  by  small  l)eginnings  in  the 
Black  Hills,  and  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  in- 
crease in  size  and  depth  as  they  proceed  down  to 
join  the  Arkansa,  or  the  Canadian  river,  and  finally 
the  Mississippi,  and  so  run  into  the  vast  salt  ocean. 
Whether  it  was  Captain  Sublet's  own  invention,  or 
an  invention  of  the  Indians,  we  know  not,  but  the 
contrivance  we  used  is  worth  mentioning.  They 
called  it  a  Bull-boat.  They  first  cut  a  number  of  wil- 
lows (which  grow  every  where  near  the  banks  of  all 
the  rivers  we  had  travelled  by  from  St.  Louis),  of 
about  an  inch  and  a  half  diameter  at  the  butt  end, 
and  fixed  them  in  the  ground  at  proper  distances 
from  each  other,  and  as  they  approached  nearer  one 
end  they  brought  them  nearer  together,  so  as  to  form 
something  like  the  bow.  The  ends  of  the  whole 
were  brought  and  bound  firmly  together,  like  the 
ribs  of  a  great  basket;  and  then  they  took  other 
twigs  of  willow  and  wove  them  into  those  stuck 
in  the  gromid  so  as  to  make  a  sort  of  firm,  huge 
basket  of  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  long.  After  this 
was  com[)leted,  they  sewed  together  a  number  of 
buffalo-skins,  and  with  them  covered  the  whole  ; 
and  after  the  different  parts  had  been  trimmed  off 
smooth,  a  slow  fire  was  made  under  the  Bu  1-boat, 
taking  care  to  dry  the  skins  moderatcdy ;  and  as 


34 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


they  gradually  dried,  and  acquired  a  due  degree  of 
waruith,  they  rubbed  buffalo-tallow  all  over  the 
outside  of  it,  so  as  to  allow  it  to  enter  into  all  the 
seams  of  the  boat,  now  no  longer  a  willow-basket. 
As  the  melted  tallow  ran  down  into  every  seam, 
hole,  and  crevice,  it  cooled  into  a  firm  body  capa- 
ble of  resisting  the  water,  and  bearing  a  considera- 
ble blow  without  damajiine  it.  Then  the  wil- 
low-ribbed,  buffalo-skin,  tallowed  vehicle  was 
carefully  pulled  up  from  the  ground,  and  be- 
hold a  boat  capable  of  transporting  man,  horse,  and 
goods  over  a  pretty  strong  current.  At  the  sight 
of  it,  we  Yankees  all  burst  out  into  a  loud  laugh, 
whether  from  surprise,  or  pleasure,  or  both,  I  know 
not.  It  certainly  was  not  from  ridicule  ;  for  we 
all  acknowledged  the  contrivance  would  have  done 
credit  to  old  New- England. 

While  Captain  Sublet  and  his  company  were  bind- 
ing the  gunwale  of  the  boat  with  buffalo-sinews,  to 
give  it  strength  and  due  hardness,  our  Captain  was 
by  no  means  idle.  He  accordingly  undertook  to 
make  a  raft  to  transport  our  own  goods  across  the 
river.  Sublet  expressed  his  opinion  that  it  would 
not  answer  where  the  current  was  strong ;  but 
Captain  Wyeth  is  a  man  not  easily  to  be  diverted 
from  any  of  his  notions,  or  liable  to  be  influenced 
by  the  advice  of  others  ;  so  that  while  Sublet's  men 
were  employed  on  their  Bull-boat,  Wyeth  and  a 
chosen  few  were  making  a  raft.  When  finished, 
we  first  placed  our  blacksmith's  shop  upon  it,  that 
is  to  say,  our  anvil,  and  large  vice,  and  other  valua- 
ble articles  belonging  to  blacksmithery,  bar-iron, 
and  steel  traps,  and  alas !  a  cask  of  powder,  and  a 
number  of  smaller,  but  valuable  articles.  We  fixed 
a  rope  to  our  raft,  and  with  some  difficulty  got 


.1 


iw 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


36 


! 


the  other  end  of  it  across  the  river  to  the  opposite 
bank  by  a  man  swimming  with  a  rope  in  his  mouth, 
from  some  distance  above   the  spot  he  aimed  to 
reach.     We  took  a  turn  of  it  round  a  tree.      Captain 
Sublet  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that   the  line  would 
not  be  sufficient  to  command  the  raft.      But  our 
Leader  was  confident  that  it  would  ;  but  when  they 
had  pulled  about  half  way  over,  the  rope  broke,  and 
the  raft  caught  under  the  limbs  of  a  partly  submerged 
tree,  and  tipped  it  on  one  side  so  that  we  lost  our 
iron  articles,  and  damaged  our  goods  and  a  number  of 
percussion  caps.     This  was  a  very  serious  calamity 
and  absolutely  irreparable.     Almost  every  disaster 
has  some  benefit  growing  out  of  it.    It  was  even  so 
here.     Two  thirds  of  our  company  were  sick,  and 
that  without  any   particular   disorder  that  we  can 
name,  but  from  fatigue,  bad  water,  scanty  food,  and 
eating  flesh  half  raw.     Add  to  this,  worry  of  mind, 
and  serious  apprehensions  of  our  fate  when  the  wor- 
thy Captain  Sublet  should  leave  us  ;  for  he  was,  un- 
der Providence,  the  instrument  of  our  preservation. 
Our  own  individual  sufferings  were  enough  for  us  to 
bear  ;  but  Captain  Wyeth  had  to  bear  the  like,  and 
more  beside,  as  the  responsibility  lay  heavy   upon 
him.     Most  men  would  have  sunk  under  it.      At 
this  point  of  our  journey  we  were  sadly  tormen- 
ted by  musquetoes,  that  prevented   our  sleep  after 
the  fatigues  of  the  day.     This  little  contemptible 
insect,  which  they  call  here  a  gnat,  disturbed*  us 
more  than  bears,  or  wolves,  or  snakes. 

The  next  day  after  we  started  from  this  unlucky 
place,  we  descried  a  number  of  men  on  horseback, 
approaching  us  at  full  speed.  Various  were  our 
conjectures.  Captain  Sublet  had  an  apprehension 
that  they  might  be  hostile  Indians  who  fight  on 


;  ,;t; 


36 


WYETh's  OREGON   EXPEDITION. 


horseback ;  he  therefore  ordered  every  man  to 
make  fast  his  horse  as  quick  as  possible,  and  pre- 
pare for  battle  on  foot.  But  on  their  near  approach, 
we  found  them  a  body  of  white  men  called' ?r«/?- 
pers,  whose  occupation  is  to  entrap  the  beaver  and 
other  animals  that  have  valuable  furs.  Captain 
Sublet  has,  for  several  years,  had  about  two  hun- 
dred of  these  trappers  in  his  pay,  in  and  around  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  and  this  troop  was  a  party  of 
them.  His  place  of  rendezvous  for  them  is  at 
Pierreh  Hole,  by  Avhich  name  they  call  one  of  those 
deep  and  verdant  valleys  which  are  to  be  found  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains  from  the  eastern  boundary 
of  them  to  their  extreme  edge  in  the  west,  where 
the  Oregon  or  Columbia  river  commences  under 
the  name  of  Clarke's  river,  some  branches  of  which 
inosculate  with  the  n/ighty  Missomi  on  the  east. 
It  is  to  Pierreh  valley  or  Hole,  that  his  trappers 
resort  to  meet  their  employer  every  summer.  It  is 
here  they  bring  their  peltry  and  receive  their  pay; 
and  this  trafiic  has  been  kept  up  between  them  a 
number  of  }ears  with  good  faith  on  l)oth  sides,  and 
to  mutual  satisfaction  and  encouragement.  When 
Sublet  leaves  St.  Louis,  he  brings  up  tobacco, 
coffee,  rice,  powder,  shot,  paint,  beads,  handker- 
chiefs and  all  those  articles  of  finery  that  please 
both  Indian  women  and  men  ;  and  having  estab- 
lished that  sort  of  traffic  with  his  friends,  the  In- 
dians on  and  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, w  hat  chance  was  there  that  any  small  band 
from  Boston,  or  even  Cambridge,  could  supplant 
him  in  the  friendship  and  confidence  of  his  old 
acquaintance,  the  Shoshonees,  the  Black-feet,  or 
any  other  tribe  ?  He  must  have  seen  this  at  once, 
and  been  convinced  that  nothing  like  rivalship  could 


WYETH'S   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


37 


I 


rise  up  between  him  and  the  New-England  adven- 
turers. He  therefore  caressed  them,  and,  in  a 
manner,  incorporated  them  with  his  troop. 

This  gentleman  was  born  in  America  of  French 
parents,  and  partakes  largely  of  those  good-humored, 
polite,  and  accommodating  manners  which  distin- 
guish the  nation  he  sprang  from.  The  old 
French  war,  and  wars  on  this  continent  since  then, 
amply  prove  how  much  Ijetter  Frenchmen  concili- 
ate the  natives  than  the  English.  The  English  and 
the  Americans,  when  they  come  in  contact  with  the 
untutored  savage,  most  commonly  fight.  But  not 
so  the  French.  They  please  and  flatter  the  Indian,, 
give  him  powder,  and  balls,  and  flints,  and  guns,  and 
make  a  Catholic  of  him,  and  make  out  to  live  in 
friendship  with  the  red  man  and  woman  of  the 
wilderness.  It  is  strange  that  such  extremes  of 
character  should  meet.  Some  have  said  that  they 
are  not  so  very  far  distant  as  others  have  imagined,  — 
that  the  refined  French  people  love  war,  and  the 
women  paint  their  faces,  grease  their  hair,  and 
wear  East  India  blankets,  called  shawls.  —  Cap- 
tain Sublet  possesses,  doubtless,  that  conciliating 
disposition  so  characteristic  of  the  French,  and 
not  so  frequently  found  among  the  English  or 
Americans ;  for  the  decendants  of  both  nations  bear 
strong  marks  of  the  stock  they  came  from.  The 
French  have  always  had  a  stronger  hold  of  the 
aflections  of  the  Indians  than  any  other  people. 

The  trappers  kept  company  with  us  till  we  came 
to  Pierre's-Hole,  or  valley,  which  is  twelve  miles 
from  the  spot  where  we  first  met  them.  Three 
or  four  days  after,  we  were  fired  on  by  the  Indians 
about  ten  o'clock  at  night.  They  had  assembled 
to  about  the  number  of  three  hundred.     They  stole 

4 


38 


WYETh'3  OREGON  EXPEDITON. 


yi- 


five  horses  from  us,  and  three  from  Sublet's  com- 
pany. About  the  first  of  July  we  crossed  the 
highest  part  or  ridge  of  the  mountains.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  mountain  composed  of  earth,  sand,  and 
stone,  including  common  rocks,  there  were  certain 
peaks  resembling  a  loaf  of  sugar,  from  a  hundred 
to  two  hundred  feet  high  ;  and  some  appeared  much 
higher  ;  Icannot  guess  their  height.  They  were  to 
us  surprising.  Their  sides  deviated  but  little  from 
perpendicular.  They  looked  at  a  distance  like 
some  light-houses  of  a  conical  form,  or  like  our 
Cambridge  glass  manufactories  ;  but  how  they  ac- 
quired that  form  is  wonderful.  Subsiding  waters 
may  have  left  them  so,  after  washing  away  sandy 
materials.  But  nature  is  altogether  wonderful,  in 
her  large  works  as  well  as  small.  How  little  do 
we  know  of  the  first  cause  of  any  thing  !  We  had 
to  creep  round  the  base  of  these  steep  edifices  of 
nature.  We  now  more  clearly  understand  and 
relish  the  question  of  one  of  our  Indians  who  was 
carried  to  England  as  a  show,  who,  on  being  shown 
that  elegant  pile  of  stone,  the  Cathedral  of  St. 
Paul,  after  viewing  it  in  silent  admiration,  asked 
his  interpreter  whether  it  was  made  by  meri's  luinds, 
or  whether  it  grew  there.  We  might  ask  the  same 
question  respecting  these  conical  mountains.  Had 
the  scaffolding  of  St.  Paul's  remained,  the  surprise 
and  wonder  of  the  sensible  savage  had  been  less. 

It  was  difficult  to  keep  our  feet  on  these  highest 
parts  of  the  mountains ;  some  of  the  pack-horses 
slipped  and  rolled  over  and  over,  and  yet  were  taken 
up  alive.  Those  that  did  not  fall  were  sadly  bruised 
and  lamed  in  their  feet  and  joints.  Mules  are  best 
calculated,  as  we  experienced,  for  such  difficult 
travelling.      They  seei^  to  think,  and  to  judge 


■ 


V 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION* 


3d 


of  the  path  before  them,  and  will  sometimes  put 
their  fore  feet  together  and  slip  down  without  step- 
ping. Thej  are  as  sagacious  in  crossing  a  river, 
where  there  is  a  current.  They  will  not  attempt 
to  go  straight  over,  but  will  breast  the  tide  by  pass- 
ing obliquely  upwards.  One  of  our  horses  was 
killed  by  a  fall  down  one  of  these  precipices,  and 
it  was  surprising  that  more  of  them  did  not  sliare 
the  like  fate.  Buffaloes  were  so  scarce  here,  that 
we  were  obliged  to  feed  on  our  dried  meat,  and  this 
scarcity  continued  till  after  we  had  gained  the  head 
sources  of  the  Columbia  river.  For  the  last  five 
days  we  have  had  to  travel  on  the  Colorado  of  the 
West,  which  is  a  very  long  river,  and  empties  into 
the  gulph  of  California. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1832,  we  arrived  at  Lewis's 
fork,  one  of  the  largest  rivers  in  these  rocky  moun- 
tains. It  took  us  all  day  to  cross  it.  It  is  half  a 
mile  wide,  deep,  and  rapid.  The  way  we  managed 
was  this  ;  one  man  unloaded  his  horse,  and  swam 
across  with  him,  leading  two  loaded  ones,  and  un- 
loading the  two,  brought  them  back,  for  two  more, 
and  as  Sublet's  company  and  our  own  made  over  a 
hundred  and  fifty,  we  were  all  day  in  passing  the 
river.  In  returning,  my  mule,  by  treading  on  a 
round  stone,  stumbled  and  threw  me  off,  and  the 
current  was  so  strong,  that  a  bush  which  I  caught 
hold  of  only  saved  me  from  drowning. 

This  being  Independence- Day,  we  drank  the 
health  of  our  friends  in  Massachusetts,  in  good 
clear  water,  as  that  was  the  only  liquor  we  had  to 
drink  in  remembrance  of  our  homes  and  dear  con- 
nexions. If  I  may  judge  by  my  own  feelings  and  by 
the  looks  of  my  companions,  there  was  more  of 
melancholy  than  joy  amongst  us.    We  were  almost 


M 


1'''   ! 


40 


>vyeth's  Oregon  jij^pedition. 


k. 


I! 


i! 


four  thousand  miles  from  Boston,  and  in  sa^'ing 
Boston  we  mean,  at  the  same  time  our  native  spot 
Camhridge,  as  they  are  separated  by  a  wood- 
en bridge  only.  From  the  north  fork  of  Lewis's 
river  we  passed  on  to  an  eminence  called  Teton 
mountain,  where  we  spent  the  night.  The  next  day 
was  pleasant,  and  serene.  Captain  Sublet  came  in  the 
evening  to  enquire  how  many  of  our  company  were 
sick,  as  they  must  ride,  it  being  impossible  for  them 
to  go  on  foot  any  farther.  His  kindness  and  at- 
tention I  never  can  forget.  Dr.  Jacob  Wyeth,  the 
Captain's  brother,  George  More,  and  Stephen  Bur- 
dit  were  too  weak  to  walk.  To  accommodate 
them  with  horses,  Captain  Wyeth  was  obliged  to 
dig  a  hole  in  the  earth,  and  therein  bury  the  goods 
which  had  been  hitherto  carried  on  horseback,  in 
the  language  of  the  Trappers  this  hiding  of  goods 
was  called  cacher  or  hidden  treasure,  being  t  he  F  rench 
term  for*  to  hide.'  When  they  dig  these  hiding-holes 
they  carefully  carry  the  earth  on  a  buffalo-skin  to  a 
distance,  so  as  to  leave  no  marks  or  traces  of  the 
ground  being  dug  up  or  disturbed  :  and  this  was 
done  to  secure  the  cache  fifom  being  stolen  by  the 
Indians  or  the  whitemen.  The  goods  so  hidden 
are  wrapt  up  in  buffalo-skins  to  keep  them  dry,  be- 
fore the  earth  is  put  over  them.  Nor  is  this  all ; 
they  make  a  fire  over  the  spot,  and  all  this  to  pre- 
vent the  Indians  from  suspecting  that  treasure  is 
cache,  or  hidden  there,  while  the  owner  of  it  takes 
care  to  mark  the  bearing  of  the  spot  on  some  tree, 
or  rock,  or  some  other  object  that  may  lead  him 
to  recognise  the  place  again.  But  I  have  my 
doubts  whether  they  who  hid  the  goods  will  ever 
return  that  way  to  dig  up  their  hidden  treasure. 
We  did  not  meddle  with  it  on  our  return  with 
Captain  Sublet, 


5 

I 


WYETh's  OREGON   EXPEDITION. 


41 


jing 
spot 
ood- 
vis's 


I 


On  the  5th  of  July  we  started  afresh  rather  low- 
spirited.  We  looked  with  sadness  on  the  way  be- 
fore us.  The  mountain  was  here  pretty  thickly 
timbered  down  its  slopes,  and  wherever  the  ground 
is  level.  The  pines  and  hemlock  trees  were 
generally  about  eighteen  inches  through.  It  had 
snowed,  and  we  were  now  at  a  height  where  the 
snow  commonly  lies  all  the  year  round.  Which  ever 
way  we  looked,  the  region  presented  a  dreary  aspect. 
No  one  could  wonder  that  even  some  of  us  who 
were  in  health,  were,  at  times,  somewhat  home- 
sick. If  this  was  the  case  with  us,  what  must 
have  been  the  feelings  of  our  three  sick  fellow 
travellers.  We  passed  through  a  snow  bank  three 
feet  deep.  We  well  ones  passed  on  with  Captain 
Sublet  to  the  top  of  the  mountain,  and  there  waited 
until  our  sick  men  came  up  with  us.  George  More 
fell  from  his  horse  through  weakness.  He  might 
have  maintained  his  seat  on  level  ground,  but  as- 
cending and  descending  required  more  exertion 
than  he  could  call  forth  ;  and  this  was  the  case  also 
with  Dr.  Wyeth.  Burdit  made  out  a  little  better. 
When  we  encamped  at  night,  we  endured  a  snow 
storm.  Sublet's  company  encamped  about  two 
miles  from  us  ;  for  at  best  we  could  hardly  keep 
up  with  his  veteran  company.  Thoj  were  old  and 
experienced  trappers,  and  we,  compared  with  them, 
young  and  inexperienced  soldiers,  little  imagining 
that  w^e  should  ever  have  to  encounter  such  hard- 
ships, in  realizing  our  dreams  of  making  a  fortune. 
Ignorance  of  the  future  is  not  always  to  be  con- 
sidered among  the  calamities  of  man. 

Captain  Sublet's  grand  rendezvous,  or  Head 
Quarters,  was  about  twelve  miles  from  our  en- 
campment.     He   had   there  about  two   hundred 

4* 


n 

i 


1 

I 
It 

j    ^^ 

Mi     ''■ 


; 


li 


42 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITIOI^^ 


trappers,  or  beaver-hunters ;  or  more  properly  speak- 
ing, skinners  of  entrapped  animals ;  or  peltry- 
hunters,  for  they  chased  but  few  of  the  cap- 
tured beasts.  To  these  were  added  about  five 
hundred  Indians,  of  the  rank  of  warriors,  all  en- 
gaged in  the  same  pursuit  and  traffic  of  the  fur- 
trade.  They  we  .^  principally  the  Flat-heads,  so 
called  from  their  flattening  the  heads  of  their  young 
children,  by  forcing  them  to  wear  a  piece  of  wood, 
like  a  bit  of  board,  so  as  to  cause  the  «kull  to  grow 
flat,  which  they  consider  a  mark  of  beauty  even 
among  the  females.  They  are  otherwise  dandies 
and  belles  in  their  dress  and  ornaments.  This 
large  body  of  horse  made  a  fine  appearance,  espe- 
cially their  long  hair ;  for,  as  there  was  a  pleasant 
breeze  of  wind,  their  hair  blew  out  straight  all  in 
one  direction,  which  had  the  appearance  of  so  many 
black  streamers.  When  we  met  they  halted  and 
fired  three  rounds  by  way  of  salute,  which  we  re- 
turned ;  and  then  followed  such  friendly  greetings 
as  were  natural  and  proper  between  such  high  con- 
tracting powers  and  great  and  good  allies.  This 
parade  was  doubtless  made  by  Sublet  for  the  sake  of 
effect.  It  was  showing  us,  Yankee  barbarians, 
their  Elephayits  \ — like  General  and  Lord  Howe's 
military  display  to  our  commissioners  of  Congress, 
on  Staten  Island,  when  the  British  Brothers  pro- 
posed that  celebrated  interview ;  and  when  Dr. 
Franklin,  Mr.  Adams,  and  some  others  of  the  dep- 
utation, whose  names  I  do  not  now  recollect,  as- 
sumed all  that  careless  indifference,  very  common 
with  the  Indians  on  meeting  a  white  embassy ;  for 
the  express  purpose  of  conveying  an  idea,  that  we, 
though  the  weakest  in  discipline  and  numbers,  are 
not  awe-struck  by  your  fine  dress,  glittering  arms, 
and  full-fed  persons. 


i 


u 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


43 


'  t| 


i 

I 


h 


It  was  now  the  6th  of  July,  1832,  being  sixty- 
four  days  since  we  left  the  settlements  of  the  white 
people.  Captain  Sublet  encamped  his  ^  .oes  ;  and 
then  pointed  out  to  Captain  Wyeth  the  ground 
which  he  thought  would  be  most  proper  for  us ; 
and  altogether  we  looked  like  a  little  army.  Not 
but  what  we  felt  small  compared  with  our  great  and 
powerful  allies. 

We  were  overjoyed  to  think  that  we  had  got  to 
a  resting-place,  where  we  could  repose  our  weary 
limbs,  and  recruit  the  lost  strength  of  our  sick. 
While  Sublet  was  finishing  his  business  with  his 
Indian  trappers,  they  delivering  their  peltry,  and  he 
remunerating  them  in  his  way  with  cloth,  powder, 
ball,    beads,    knives,    handkerchiefs,    and  all    that 
gawdy  trumpery  which  Indians  admire,  together 
with  coffee,  rice,  and  corn,  also  leather,  and  other 
articles,  —  we,  being  idle,  had  time  to  think,  to  re- 
flect, and  to  be  uneasy.    We  had  been  dissatisfied 
for  some  time,  but  we  had  not  leisure  to  communi- 
cate it  and  systematize  our  grievances.  I,  with  others, 
had  spoken  with  Captain  Sublet,  and  him  we  found 
conversable     and    communicative.       Mvself    and 
some  others  requested   Captain  Wyeth  to  call  a 
meeting  of  his  followers,  to  ask  information,  and  to 
know  what  we  were  now  to  expect,  seeing  we  had 
passed  over  as  we  supposed  the  greatest  difficulties, 
and  were  now  nearly  four  thousand  miles  from  the 
Atlantic,  and  within  four  hundred  miles  of  the  Pa- 
cific Ocean,  the  end  and  aim  of  our  laborious  expe- 
dition, the  field  where  we  expected  to  reap  our 
promised  harvest.     We  wished   to  have  what  we 
had  been  used  to  at  home,  —  a  town  meeting,  — 
or  a  parish  meeting,  where  every  freeman  has  an 
equal  right  to  speak  his  sentiments,  and  to  vote  there- 


|<3i 


,;:  I 


;*  I 


44 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


on.  But  Captain  Wj'eth  was  by  no  means  inclined 
to  this  democratical  procedure.  The  most  he 
seemed  inclined  to,  was  a  caucus  with  a  select  few  ; 
of  whom  neither  his  own  brother,  though  older 
than  himself,  nor  myself,  was  to  be  of  the  number. 
After  considerable  altercation,  he  concluded  to  call 
a  meeting  of  the  whole,  on  business  interesting  and 
applicable  to  all.  We  accordingly  met.  Captain 
Wyeth  in  the  chair,  or  on  the  stump,  I  forget  which. 
Instead  of  every  man  speaking  his  own  mind, 
or  asking  such  questions  as  related  to  matters  that 
lay  heaviest  on  his  mind,  the  Captain  commenced 
the  business  by  ordering  the  roll  to  be  called  ;  and 
as  the  names  were  called,  the  clerk  asked  the  per- 
son if  he  would  go  on.  The  first  name  was 
Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth,  whom  we  had  dubbed  Cap- 
tain, who  answered — "I  shall  go  on."  —  The 
next  was  William  Nud,  who,  before  he  answered, 
wished  to  know  what  the  Captain's  plan  and  inten- 
tions were,  whether  to  try  to  commence  a  small 
colony,  or  to  trap  and  trade  for  beaver  ?  To 
which  Captain  Wyeth  replied,  that  that  was  none 
of  our  business.  Then  Mr.  Nud  said,  "  1  shall  not 
go  on ; "  and  as  the  names  of  the  rest  were  called, 
there  appeared  seven  persons  out  of  the  twenty-one, 
who  were  determined  to  return  home.  Of  the 
number  so  determined  was,  beside  myself.  Dr.  Ja- 
cob Wyeth,  the  Captain's  brother,  whose  strength 
had  never  been  equal  to  such  a  journey.  His  con- 
stitution forbade  it.  He  was  brought  up  at  College. 
Here  were  discontents  on  both  sides  ;  criminations 
and  recriminations.  A  commander  of  a  band  of 
associated  adventurers  has  a  very  hard  task.  The 
comnranded,  whether  in  a  school,  or  in  a  regiment, 
or  company,  naturally  combine  in  feeling  against 


4    '' 


lined 


WYETH  S   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


45 


their  leader  ;  and  this  is  so  natural  that  armies  are 
obliged  to  make  very  strict  rules,  and  to  pursue 
rigid  discipline.  It  is  so  also  on  ship-board.  Our 
merchant  ships  cannot  sail  in  safety  without  exact- 
ing prompt  obedience ;  and  disobedience  in  the 
common  seamen  is  mutiny,  and  mutiny  is  a  high 
crime,  and  approximates  to  piracy.  It  is  pretty 
much  so  in  these  long  and  distant  exploring  expe- 
ditions. The  Captain  cannot  always  with  safety 
satisfy  all  the  questions  put  to  him  by  those  under 
his  command ;  and  it  would  lead  to  great  inconve- 
nience to  entrust  any,  even  a  brother,  with  any  in- 
formation concealed  from  the  rest.  There  must 
be  secrecy,  and  there  must  be  confidence.  We 
had  travelled  through  a  dreary  wilderness,  an 
infinitely  worse  country  than  Palestine ;  yet 
Moses  himself  could  not  have  kept  together  the 
Israelites  without  the  aid  of  miracles ;  and  the 
history  we  have  given  of  our  boat-like  arks,  and 
the  wreck  of  our  raft,  and  the  loss  of  our  heaviest 
articles  may  lead  most  readers  to  suspect  that  our 
Leader  to  his  Land  of  Promise  was  not  an  inspired 
man.  In  saying  this,  we  censure  no  one,  we  only 
lament  our  common  frailty.  Reflect  a  moment, 
considerate  reader !  on  our  humble  means,  for  an 
expedition  of  four  thousand  miles,  compared 
with  the  ample  means,  rich  and  complete  out-fit, 
letters  of  credit,  and  every  thing  deemed  needful, 
given  to  Captains  Lewis  and  Clarke,  under  the  or- 
ders of  the  government  of  the  United  States;  and 
yet  ihey  several  times  came  very  near  starving 
for  the  want  of  food,  and  oi  fuel,  even  in  the 
Oregon  territory!  In  all  books  of  voyages  and 
travels,  who  ever  heard  of  the  utmost  distress  for 
want  of  wood,   leaves,  roots,  coal,  or  turf  to  ccok 


I 


46 


WYETH'S  OR  ;»  ON  EXPEDITION. 


:;;  I 


■I 


with  ?  Yet  all  through  the  dreary  wilderness  of 
Missouri)  we  were  obliged  to  use  the  dung  of  buffa- 
loes, or  eat  raw  flesh.  The  reader  will  scarcely 
believe  that  this  was  the  case  even  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Oregon  river.  Clarke  and  Lewis  had  to 
buy  wood  of  the  Indians,  who  had  hardly  enough 
for  themselves.  To  be  deprived  of  solid  food  soon 
ends  in  death  ;  but  we  were  often  deprived  of  the 
two  elements  out  of  four,^rc  and  water j  and  when 
on  the  Rocky  mountains,  of  a  third,  I  mean  earth ; 
for  every  thing  beneath  our  feet  and  around  us  was 
stone.  We  had,  be  sure,  air  enough,  and  too  much 
too,  sometimes  enough  almost  to  blow  our  hair  off. 

But  to  return  to  our  dismal  list  of  grievances. 
Almost  every  one  of  the  company  wished  to  go 
no  farther ;  but  they  found  themselves  too  feeble  and 
exhausted  to  think  of  encountering  the  risk  of  a 
march  on  foot  of  three  thousand  five  hundred  miles 
through  such  a  country  as  we  came.  We  asked  Cap- 
tain Wyeth  to  let  us  have  our  muskets  and  a  sufficien- 
cy of  ammunition,  which  request  he  refused.  After- 
wards, he  collected  all  the  guns,  and  after  selecting 
such  as  he  and  his  companions  preferred,  he  gave  us 
the  refuse  ;  many  of  which  were  unfit  for  use.  There 
were  two  tents  belonging  to  the  company,  of  which 
he  gave  us  one;  which  we  pitched  about  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  fom  his.  George  More  expressed  his  deter- 
mination of  returning  home,  and  asked  for  a  horse, 
which  after  considerable  difficulty  he  obtained. 
This  was  July  10th.  The  Captain  likewise  sup- 
plied his  brother  with  a  horse  and  a  hundred  dol- 
lars. 

On  the.  12th  of  July,  Captain  Wyeth,  after  mov- 
ing his  tent  half  a  mile  farther  from  ours,  put  liim- 
self  under  the  conimand  of  Mr.  Milton  Su'>let, 


I 


WYETh's   OREGON  EXPEDITIOV. 


47 


;ss  of 
mffa- 
rcely 
louth 
id  to 
ough 

soon 
>f  the 
when 
arth ; 
s  was 
much 
iir  off. 
ances. 
to  go 
le  and 

of  a 

miles 

1  Cap- 

tncien- 

After- 

leethig 

;ave  us 

There 

which 

irter  of 

deter- 

horse, 

tained. 

e  sup* 

ed  dol- 

r  mov- 
It  him- 
Su')let, 


# 


brother  of  Captain  William  Sublet  so  often  men- 
tioned. This  Captain  Milton  Sublet  had  about 
twenty  men  under  his  command,  all  trappers ;  so 
that  hereafter  as  far  as  I  know,  it  was  Wyeth, 
Sublet  and  Co.;  so  that  the  reader  will  understand, 
that  Dr.  Jacob  Wyeth,  Palmer,  Law,  Batch,  and 
myself  concluded  to  retrace  our  steps  to  St.  »  ouis 
in  company  with  Captain  William  Sublet,  while 
Captain  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth  remained  with  Milton 
Sublet, and  his  twenty  men.  1  have  been  unreasona- 
bly blamed  for  leaving  m}' kinsman  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains  with  only  eleven  of  his  company,  and 
that  too  when  we  were  within  about  four  hundred 
miles  of  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia,  alias  Oregon 
river,  where  it  pours  into  the  bolster  ok  s  Pacific  Ocean, 
for  such  Lewis  and  Clarke  found  it  to  their  cost. 

The  spot  where  we  now  v\  ere,  is  a  valley,  be- 
tween two  mountains,  about  ten  miles  wide,  so 
lofty  that  their  tops  are  covered  with  snow,  while 
it  was  warm  and  pleasant  where  we  j)itched 
our  tent.  This  agreeable  valley  is  called  by  the 
trappers  Pierre's' Hole,  as  if  it  were  a  dismal  resi- 
dence ;  and  was  the  most  western  point  that  I 
visited,  being  about,  we  conjectured,  four  hundred 
miles  short  of  the  mouth  of  the  Oregon  river, 
whence  the  territory  derives  its  name,  which 
Mr.  Hall  J.  Kelly  has  described  as  another  para- 
dise!  O!  the  matjic  of  sounds  and  inflated  words! 
Whether  Captain  Wyeth's  expedition  was  wise  or 
imprudent  we  are  not  prepared  to  say  ;  but  under 
existing  circumstances,  half  of  his  company  having 
left  him,  and  among  them  his  own  brother,  the 
surgeon  of  the  expedition,  we  cannot  see  what 
better  he  could  have  done  than  to  ally  himself 
to  an  experienced  band  of  hunters,  as  a  step  necessa- 


48 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


\    \: 


?' 


if  .r  I 


?  H 


It,     ' 


!1  I 


It) 


!      1 


ry  to  his  own  preservation.  He  was  three  thou- 
sand and  five  hundred  miles  from  the  Atlantic 
Ocean,  with  only  eleven  men,  and  half  his  goods 
lost  or  expended,  and  no  resource  of  supply  short 
of  St.  Louis,  nineteen  hundred  miles  from  them. 
Had  not  the  Suhlets  been  with  them  from  that 
place  through  the  wilderness  of  Missouri  and  La 
rlatte,  it  is  hardly  probable  they  would  have  ever 
reached  the  west  side  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
In  passing  judgment  on  this  strange  expedition,  we 
must  take  in,  beside  facts,  probabilities  and  casu- 
alties. 

On  the  17th  of  July,  Captain  Wyeth  and  Cap- 
tain Milton  Sublet  set  out  westward  with  their 
respective  men  to  go  to  Salmon  river  to  winter. 
The  former  had  eleven  beside  himself:  that  river 
they  computed  at  two  hundred  miles  distance. 
Wyeth  accordingly  purchased  twenty-five  horses 
from  the  Indians,  who  had  a  great  number,  and 
those  very  fine,  and  high-spirited.  Indeed  the 
Western  region  seems  the  native  and  congenial 
country  for  horses.  They  were,  however,  delayed 
till  the  next  day.  But  when  they  were  about 
moving,  they  perceived  a  drove  of  something, 
whether  buffaloes  or  men  they  could  not  determine 
with  the  naked  eye ;  but  when  aided  by  the  glass, 
they  recognised  them  for  a  body  of  the  Black-foot 
tribe  of  Indinns,  a  powerful  and  warlike  nation. 
As  this  movement  was  evidently  hostile,  Captain 
Milton  Sublet  dispatched  two  men  to  call  on  his 
brother,  who  was  about  eight  miles  off,  for  assist- 
ance ;  when  Captain  William  Sublet  ordered 
every  man  to  get  ready  immediately.  We  had 
about  five  hundred  friendly  Indian  warriors  with 
us,  who  expressed  their  willingness  to  join  in  our 
defence. 


( 


WYETH'S  OREGON    EXPEDITION. 


49 


As  soon  as  we  left  Captain  Wyeth  we  joined 
Captain  Sublet,  as  he  said  that  no  white  man 
should  be  there  unless  he  was  to  be  under  his 
command  ;  and  his  reason  for  it  was  that  in  case 
they  had  to  fight  the  Indians,  no  one  should  flinch 
or  sneak  out  of  the  battle.  It  seems  that  when 
\  .  the  Black-foot  Indians  saw  us  moving  in  battle 
array,  they  appeared  to  hesitate  ;  and  at  length 
they  displayed  a  white  flag  as  an  ensign  of  peace  ; 
but  Sublet  knew  their  treacherous  character.  The 
chief  of  the  friendly  Flat-heads  and  Antoine  rode 
together,  and  concerted  tliis  savage  arrangement ; 
to  ride  up  and  accost  them  in  a  friendly  manner; 
and  when  the  Black-foot  chief  should  take  hold  of 
the  Flat-head  chief's  hand  in  token  of  friendship, 
then  the  other  was  to  shoot  him,  which  was  in- 
stantly done !  and  at  that  moment  the  Flat-head 
chief  pulled  ollf  the  Black-foot's  scarlet  robe,  and 
returned  with  the  Captain  to  our  party  unhurt. 
As  soon  as  the  Black-foot  Indians  recovered  from 
their  surprise,  they  displayed  a  red  flag,  and  the 
battle  began.  This  was  Joab  with  a  vengeance, 
—  Art  thou  in  health  my  brother  ? 

The  Black-foot  chief  was  a  man  of  consequence 
in  his  nation.  He  not  only  wore  on  this  occasion 
a  robe  of  scarlet  cloth,  probably  obtained  from  a 
Christian  sou'ce,  l)ut  was  decorated  with  beads 
valued  there  at  sixty  dollars.  The  battle  com- 
menced on  the  Prairie.  As  soon  as  the  firing 
began  on  both  sides,  the  squaws  belonging  to  the 
Black-foot  forces,  retreated  about  fifty  yards  into 
a  small  thicket  of  wood,  and  there  threw  up  a 
ridge  of  earth  by  way  of  entrenchment,  having 
first  piled  up  a  number  of  logs  cob-fashion,  to 
which   the   men   at   length  fell    back,  and   from 

6 


1 1 


i  it 


li.-i    \ 
li  'I     *«' 

M 


v: 


s  i 

^1 


50 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


which  they  fired  upon  us,  while  some  of  their  party 
with  the  women  were  occupied  in  deepening  the 
trench.  Shallow  as  it  was,  it  afforded  a  considera- 
ble security  to  an  Indian,  who  will  often  shoot  a 
man  from  behind  a  tree  near  to  its  root,  while  the 
white  man  is  looking  to  see  his  head  pop  out  at 
man's  height.  This  has  taught  the  United  States 
troops,  to  load  their  muskets  while  lying  on  their 
backs,  and  firing  in  an  almost  supine  posture.  When 
the  Duke  of  Saxe-Weimar  was  in  Cambridge,  he 
noticed  this,  to  him,  novel  mode  of  firing,  which 
he  had  never  before  seen  ;  and  this  was  in  a  vol- 
unteer company  of  militia.  — I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  the  Indians  fired  only  in  a  supine  posture ; 
when  they  had  loaded  they  most  commonly  rose  up 
and  fired,  and  then  down  on  the  ground  again  to 
re-load.  —  In  this  action  with  the  formidable  Black- 
foot  tribe.  Captain  Nathaniel  J.  Wyeth's  party  had 
no  concern.  He  himself  was  in  it  a  very  short 
time,  but  retired  from  the  contest  doubtless  for 
good  reasons.  After  contesting  the  matter  with 
the  warlike  tribe  about  six  hours.  Captain  Sublet 
found  it  of  little  avail  to  fight  them  in  this  way. 
He  therefore  determined  to  charge  them  at  once, 
which  was  accordingly  done.  He  led,  and  ordered 
his  men  to  follow  him,  and  this  proved  effectual. 
Six  beside  himself  first  met  the  savages  hand  to 
hand  ;  of  these  seven,  four  were  wounded,  and  one 
killed.  The  Captain  was  wounded  in  his  arm  and 
shoulder-blade.  The  Indians  did  not,  however, 
retreat  entirely,  so  that  we  kept  up  a  random  fire 
until  dark;  the  ball  and  the  arrows  vve/e  striking  the 
trees  after  we  could  see  the  effects  of  one  and  of 
the  other.  There  was  something  terrific  to  our  men 
in  their  arrows.    The  idea  of  a  barbed  arrow  stick- 


f 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


51 


ing  in  a  man's  body,  as  we  had  observed  it  in  the 
deer  and  other  animals,  was  appaling  to  us  all,  and 
it  is  no  wonder  that  some  of  our  men  recoiled  al 
it.  They  regarded  a  leaden  bullet  much  less.  We 
may  judge  from  this  the  terror  of  the  savages  on 
being  met  the  first  time  by  fire  arms,  —  a  sort  of 
thunder  and  lightning  followed  by  death  without 
seeing  the  fatal  shot. 

In  this  battle  with  the  Indians,  not  one  of  those 
who  had  belonged  to  Captain  Wyeth's  company 
received  any  injury.  There  were,  however,  seven 
white  men  of  Sublet's  company  killed,  and  thirteen 
wounded.  Twenty-five  of  our  Indians  were  killed, 
and  thirty-five  wounded.  The  next  morning  a 
number  of  us  went  back  to  the  Indian  fort,  so 
called,  where  we  I  i«nd  one  dead  man  and  two 
women,  and  also  i  vv  «i;y-five  dead  horses,  a  proof 
that  the  Black-foot  were  brave  men.  The  number 
of  them  was  uncertain.  We  calculated  that  they 
amounted  to  about  three  hundred.  We  guessed 
that  the  reason  the  three  dead  bodies  were  left  at 
the  entrenchment  was,  that  they  had  not  enough  left 
to  carry  off  their  dead  and  wounded.  This  affair 
delayed  Captain  Wyeth  three  days,  and  Captain 
Sublet  ten  days.  The  names  of  those  who  left 
Captain  Wyeth  to  return  home,  were  Dr.  Jacob 
Wyeth,  John  B.  Wyeth,  his  cousin,  William  Nud, 
Theophilus  Beach,    R.   L.   Wakefield,    Hamilton 

Law,  George  More, Lane,  and  Walter  Palmer. 

The  names  of  those  who  remained  attached  to 
Captain  Wyeth,  and  who  went  on  with  him  to 
Salmon  nvor,  are  J.  Woodman  Smith,  G.  Sargent, 

•  Abbot,  W.  Brcck,  S.  Burditt, Ball,  St. 

Clair,  C.  Tibbits,  G.  Trumbull,  and VVhittier. 

When  they  had  gone  three  days  journey  from  us, 


'Hi 

m 

m 


ip 


ifr. 


il  i: 


h 


52 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


as  they  were  riding  securely  in  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon,  about  thirty  of  the  Black-foot  Indians, 
who  lay  in  ambush  about  twenty  yards  from  them, 
suddenly  sprang  up  and  fired.  The  surprise  occa- 
sioned the  horses  to  wheel  about,  which  threw  off 
George  More,  and  mortally  wounded  one  of  the 
men,  Alfred  K.  Stevens.  As  the  Indians  knew 
that  More  could  not  get  away  from  them,  they 
passed  him, and  about  twenty  Indians  were  coming 
up  the  hill  where  they  were.  Eight  or  ten  Indians 
followed  up  while  only  five  trappers  had  gained  the 
hill.  They  were  considering  how  to  save  George 
More,  when  one  of  them  shot  him  through  the 
head,  which  was  a  better  fate  than  if  they  had 
taken  him  alive,  as  they  would  have  tortured  him 
to  death. 

We  have  said  that  Captain  Wyeth  and  the  few 
who  had  concluded  to  go  on  with  him,  were  ready 
to  begin  their  march  for  Salmon  river.  On  this 
occasion  Captain  Milton  Sublet  escorted  them 
about  one  hundred  miles,  so  as  to  protect  them 
from  the  enraged  Black-feet,  and  then  left  them  to 
take  care  of  themselves  for  the  winter  ;  and  this 
is  the  last  tidings  we  have  had  of  Captain  Nathan- 
iel J.  Wyeth,  and  his  reduced  band  of  adventurers. 
If  we  have  been  rightly  informed,  their  chief  hope 
was  residing  on  a  phnisant  river  where  there  was 
plenty  of  salmon,  and  ])robably  elk  and  deer,  and 
water-fowl  ;  and  we  hope  fuel,  for  to  our  surj)rise, 
we  learnt  that  wood  for  firing  was  among  their 
great  wants.  I  have  since  been  well-infonried  that 
in  the  valley  of  Oregon,  so  much  extolled  for  its 
fertility  and  pleasantness,  wood  to  cook  with  is 
one  among  their  scarcest  and  very  dear  articles  of 
necessity.     From  all  accounts,  except  those  given 


lem, 


WYETH  S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


63 


/ 


to  the  public  by  Mr.  Kelly,  there  is  not  a  district 
at  the  mouth  of  any  large  river  more  unproductive 
than  that  of  the  Columbia,  and  it  seems  that  this 
is  pretty  much  the  case  from  the  tide  water  of 
that  river  to  where  it  empties  into  the  ocean. 

The  Flat- head  Indians  are  a  brave  and  we  had 
reason  to  believe  a  sincere  people.  '  We  had  many 
instances  of  their  honesty  and  humanity.  They 
do  not  lie,  steal,  nor  rob  any  one,  unless  when 
driven  too  near  to  starvation  ;  and  then  any  man 
black,  white,  or  red  will  seize  any  thing  to  save 
himself  from  an  agonizing  death.  The  Flat-heads 
were  well  dressed.  They  wore  buck-skin  frocks 
and  pantaloons,  and  moccasins,  with  seldom  any 
thing  on  their  heads.  They  draw  a  piece  of  fresh 
buffalo  hide  on  their  feet,  and  at  night  sleep  with 
their  feet  not  far  from  the  fire,  and  in  the  morning 
find  their  shoes  sitting  as  snug  to  their  feet  as  if 
they  had  been  measured  by  the  first  shoe-maker  in 
Boston.  It  is  probable  that  no  people  have  so 
little  shoe-pinching  as  these  savages.  I  never 
heard  any  one  complain  of  corns,  or  kibed-heels, 
severe  as  the  weather  is  in  winter.  The  women 
wear  moccasins  also,  but  whether  made  in  the  same 
extempore  method  as  those  of  the  men,  I  know  not. 
I  suspect  they  must  experience  some  shoe-pinching. 
They  wear  a  petticoat,  and  a  frock  of  some  sort 
of  leather,  according  to  fancy,  but  all  decent  and 
comfortable.  In  rainy  weather,  or  when  very  cold, 
they  throw  a  buffalo-skin  over  their  shoulders,  with 
the  fur  inside.  They  have  no  stationary  wigwams ; 
but  have  a  sort  of  tent,  which  they  fix  down  or 
remove  with  facility.  In  Major  Long's  book  may 
be  seen  an  engraved  representation  of  them.  Their 
mode  of  cooking  is  by  roasting  and  boiling.     They 

5* 


54 


WYETh's   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


ri  .1, 


!•'' 


fi 


'I? 


i 


-4' 


will  pick  a  goose,  or  a  brant,  and  run  a  stick  through 
its  body  and  so  roast  it,  without  taking  out  its  en- 
trails. They  are,  according  to  our  notions,  very 
nasty  cooks. 

I  know  not  what  to  say  of  their  religion.  I  saw 
nothing  like  images,  or  any  objects  of  worship 
whatever,  and  yet  they  appeared  to  keep  a  sabbath  ; 
for  there  is  a  day  on  which  tliey  do  not  hunt  nor 
gamble,  but  sit  moping  all  day  and  look  like  fools. 
There  certainly  appeared  among  them  an  honor,  or 
conscience,  and  sense  of  justice.  They  would  do 
what  they  promised,  and  return  our  strayed  horses, 
and  lost  articles.  Now  and  then,  but  rarely,  we 
found  a  pilferer,  but  not  oftener  than  among  the 
frontier  white  people.  The  Indians  of  all  tribes 
are  disposed  to  give  you  something  to  eat.  It  is 
a  fact  that  we  never  found  an  Indian  of  any 
tribe  disposed  to  treat  us  with  that  degree  of  in- 
hospitality  that  we  experienced  in  crossing  the 
Alleghany  Mountains,  in  the  State  of  Pennsylva- 
nia. 

» 

The  Black-foot  tribe  are  the  tallest  and  stoutest 
men  of  any  we  have  seen,  nearly  or  quite  six  feet 
in  stature,  and  of  a  lighter  complexion  than  the 
rest. 

The  Indian  warriors  carry  muskets,  bows,  and 
arrows,  the  last  in  a  quiver.  The  bows  are  made 
of  walnut,  about  three  feet  long,  and  the  string  of 
the  sinews  of  the  buffalo,  all  calculated  for  great 
elasticity,  and  will  reach  an  object  at  a  surprising 
distance.  It  was  to  us  a  much  more  terrific  weap- 
on of  war  than  a  musket.  We  had  one  man 
wounded  in  the  thigh  by  an  arrow ;  he  was  obliged 
to  ford  a  river  in  his  hasty  retreat,  and  probably 
took  a  chill,  which  occasioned  a  mortification,  of 


t 


WYETh's   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


55 


which  he  died..    The  arrows  are  headed  with  flint 
as  sharp  as  broken  glass  ;  the  other  end  of  the  arrow 
is  furnislied  with  an  eaj^le's  feather  to  steady  its 
flight.    Some  of  these  aboriginals,  as  we  learn  from 
Lewis,    Clarke,   and  Major   Long,   especially   the 
last,  have  shields  or  targets  ;  some   so  long  as  to 
reach  from  the  head  to  the  ancle.     Now  the  ques- 
tion is  how  came  our  North  American  Indians  with 
bows  and  arrows  ?     It  is  not     k^      that  they  in- 
vented them,  seeing  they  so  exactl)  resemble  the 
bows  and  arrows  of  the  old  world,  the  Greeks  and 
Romans.     They  are  the  same  weapon  to  a  feather. 
This  is  a  fresh  proof  that  our  savage  tribes  of  this 
continent  emigrated   from  the  old  one  ;  and  I  have 
learned  from  a  friend   to  whom  I  am  indebted  for 
several  ideas,  which  no  one  could  suppose  to  have 
originated  with  myself,  that  the  Indian's  bow  goes 
a  great  way  to  settle   a  disputed   point  respecting 
what  part  of  the  old   world   the  ancestors  of  our 
Indians    came    from,  —  whether  Asia  or  Europe. 
Now  the  Asiatic  bow  and  our  Indian  bow  are  of  a 
different    form.      The   first   has   a   straight  piece 
in  the  middle,  like  the  cross-bow,  being  such  an 
one  as  is  commonly  depicted  in  the  hands  of  Cu- 
pid ;  whereas  our  Indian  bow  is  a  section  of  a  cir- 
cle,  while   the   Persian   or  Asiatic   bow   has  two 
wings  extending  from  a  straight  piece  in  the  middle. 
Hence  we  have  reason  to  conclude  that  the  first 
comers  from  the  old  world  to  the  new,  came  not 
from  those  regions  renowned   for  their  cultivation 
of  the4if*8*and  sciences.     The  idea  that  our  North 
American  Indians  came  over  from  Scythia,  that  is, 
the  northern  part,  so  called,  of  Europe  and  Asia, 
whether  it  is  correct  to  call  them  Scythians,  Tar- 
tars, or  Russians,  I  leave  others  to  determine.     We 


56 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


i 


m 
Uv 


li  ! 


M 


li 

'"}■•■ 


'4 


have  many  evidences  that  our  Northern  Indians 
have  a  striiiing  resemhlance  in  countenance,  color, 
and  person  to  the  most  northern  tribes  of  Tartars, 
w^ho  inhabit  Siberia,  or  Asiatic  Russia.  The  Black- 
foot  Indians  who  inhabit  small  rivers  that  empty 
into  the  Missouri,  resemble  in  mode  of  living,  man- 
ners, and  character,  the  Calmuc  Tartars.  Both 
fight  on  horse-back,  both  are  very  brave,  and  both 
inured  to  what  we  should  consider  a  very  hard  life 
as  it  regards  food.  Both  avoid  as  much  as  they 
can  stationary  dwellings,  and  use  tents  made  with 
skins. 

On  this  subject  we  ought  not  to  omit  mentioning 
that  the  Indians  on  all  sides  of  the  Rocky  moun- 
tains have  several  customs  both  among  the  men 
and  the  women,  which  might  lead  some  to  conclude 
that  our  Northern  and  Western  Indians  descended 
from  the  Israelites  ;  and  this  similarity  is  certainly 
very  remarkable  ;  yet  there  is  one  very  strong  fact 
against  that  hypothesis,  namely,  there  is  not  the 
least  trace  amongst  our  Indians  of  the  eight-day 
rite  of  the  Jewish  males,  which  sore,  and,  to  us, 
strange  ceremony  would  hardly  have  been  forgotten, 
had  it  l)een  practised  by  our  Indians.  If  our  idea 
be  well-founded  on  this  subject,  the  custom  could 
have  originated  only  in  warm  and  redundant  cli- 
mates, so  that  had  Moses  marched  first  from  the 
shores  of  the  Baltic,  as  did  the  Goths,  instead  of  the 
shores  of  the  Red-seR,  the  Jews  never  would  have 
been  subjected  to  the  operation  of  circumcision. 

After  all,  it  is  very  likely  that  the  ParBMiiWi  came 
from  a  dififerent  stock  from  that  which  peopled  the 
Western  and  Northern  parts  of  America, —  I  mean 
from  the  warmer  regions  of  Asia.  They  seem  pos- 
sessed of  more  delicate  marks  of  person  and  of  mind 


i 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


57 


than  the  fighting  savages  of   the    North.     There 
appears  to  be  a  strong  line  ol'  separation  between 


th( 


em,  as  tar  as  our  inrormation  goes. 
To  return  to  our  own  story.     After  the  battle  at 
Pierre's  Valley,   I   had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a 


specimen  o 


f  Ind 


lan  surgery  in  treating  a  woun( 


An  Indian  squaw  first  sucked  the  wound  perfectly 
dry,  so  that  it  appeared  white  as  chalk  ;  and  then 
she  bound  it  up  with  a  piece  of  dry  buck-skin  as 
soft  as  woollen  cloth,  and  by  this  treatment  the 
wound  began  to  heal,  and  soon  closed  up,  and  the 
part  became  sound  again.  The  sucking  of  it  so 
effectually  may  have  l)een  from  an  apprehension  of 
a  poisoned  arrow.  But  who  taught  the  savage 
Indian  that  a  person  may  take  poison  into  his  mouth 
without  any  risk,  as  the  poison  of  a  rattle-snake 
without  harm,  provided  there  be  no  scratch  or 
wound  in  the  mouth,  so  as  to  admit  it  into  the 
blood  ? 

Three  of  the  men  that  left  Captain  Wyeth  when 
I  did,  enlisted  with  Captain  Sublet  to  follow  the 
trapping  business  for  the  })eriod  of  one  year,  name- 
ly, Wakefield,  Nud,  and  Lane,  leaving  Dr.  Jacob 
Wyeth,  H.  Law,  T.  Beach,  W.  Palmer,  and  my- 
self. We  accordingly  set  out  on  the  twenty-eighth 
day  of  July,  18o2,  with-  Captain  William  Sublet, 
for  home  ;  and  thus  ended  all  my  fine  prospects  and 
flattering  expectations  of  acquiring  fortune,  inde- 
pendence, and  ease,  and  all  my  hopes  that  the 
time  had  now  come  in  the  order  of  Providence, 
when  that  uncultivated  tract,  denominated  the 
Oregon  Territory^  was  to  be  clianged  into  a  fruitful 
field,  and  the  haunt  of  savages  and  wild  beasts 
made  the  hapj)y  abode  of  rehned  and  dignified 
man.  —  Mr.  Hall  J.  Kelly   published   about  two 


t 


68 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


ye-d 


s.. 


Iti 


since  a  most  inflated  and  extravagant  account 
ot  that  vvestp-  tract  which  extends  from  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  the  sliore  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  He 
says  of  it  that  no  portion  of  the  globe  presents  a 
more  fruitful  soil,  or  a  milder  climate,  or  equal 
facilities  for  carrying  into  effect  the  great  purposes 
of  a  free  and  enlightened  nation;  —  that  a  country 
so  full  of  those  natural  means  which  best  contrib- 
ute to  the  con) forts  and  conveniences  of  life,  is 
worthy  the  occupancy  of  a  people  disposed  to  sup- 
port a  free  representative  government,  and  to  es- 
tablish civil,  scientific,  and  religious  institutions. — 
and  all  this  and  much  more  to  the  same  effect  after 
Lewis  and  Clarke's  history  of  their  expedition 
had  been  published,  and  very  generally  read  ;  yet 
this  extravagant  and  fallacious  account  of  the  Ore- 
gon was  read  and  believed  by  some  people  not  des- 
titute of  a  general  information  of  things,  nor  unused 
to  reading  ;  but  there  were  circles  of  people,  chief- 
ly among  young  farmers  and  journeymen  mechan- 
ics, who  were  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  these 
extravagant  notions  of  making  a  fortune  by  only 
going  over  land  to  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  to 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  that  a  person  who  expressed  a 
doubt  of  it  was  in  danger  of  being  either  affronted, 
or,  at  least,  accused  of  being  moved  by  envious  feel- 
ings. After  a  score  of  people  had  been  enlisted  in 
this  Oregon  expedition,  they  met  together  to  feed 
and  to  magnify  each  other's  hopes  and  visionary  no- 
tions, vvliich-were  wrought  up  to  a  high  deg/ee  of 
extravagance,  so  that  it  was  hardly  safe  to  advise 
or  give  an  opionion  adverse  to  the  scheme.  When 
young  people  are  so  affected,  it  is  in  vain  to  reason 
with  them  ;  and  when  such  sanguine  persons  are 
determined  to  fight,  or  to  marry,  it  is  dangerous  to 


S. 


WYETtrS    OREGON   EXPEDITIOiN. 


59 


attempt  to  part  them  ;  and  when  they  have  their 
own  way  and  get  their  belly  full  of  fl^iiht,  and  of 
matrimony,  there  comes  a  time  of  cool  reflection. 
The  lirst  stage  of  our  reflection  began  at  St.  Louis, 
when  we  parted  with  our  amphibious  wagons,  in 
which  we  all  more  or  less  took  a  pride.  Every 
one  there  praised  the  ingenuity  of  the  contrivance 
and  construction  of  them  for  roads  and  rivers  such 
as  at  Cambridge,  and  other  places  near  to  Boston  ; 
but  we  were  assured  at  St.  Louis,  that  they  were 
by  no  means  calculated  for  our  I'ar  distant  journey. 
We  were  reminded  that  Lewis  and  Clarke  carried 
canoes  almost  to  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
by  the  route  of  Missouri  river,  but  were  obliged  to 
leave  them  there,  and  ascend  mountains  so  very 
steep,  that  sometimes  their  loaded  horses  slipped  and 
rolled  over  and  over,  down  into  lower  ground  sixty 
or  sev<^nty  feet.  This  may  serve  to  show,  among 
other  thii>gs,  how  ill-informed  Captain  Wyeth  and 
his  company  were  of  the  true  condition  of  the 
country  through  which  they  had  to  pass.  We  ex- 
pected to  support  ourselves  with  game  by  our  fire- 
arms, and  therefore  powder  and  shot  were  the 
articles  we  took  the  most  care  to  be  provided  with. 
Nor  were  we  followers  undeceived  before  we  were 
informed  at  St.  Louis,  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  take  oxen  and  sheep  to  be  slaughtered  on  the 
route  for  our  support.  We  also  found  it  advisable 
to  sell  at  that  place  the  large  number  of  axes,  great 
and  small,  with  which  we  had  encumbered  our  wag- 
ons. All  these  occurrences,  following  close  after 
one  another,  operated  to  damp  our  ardor ;  and  it  was 
this  probably  that  operated  so  powerfully  on 
W.  Bell,  Livermore,  and  Griswold,  that  they  cut 


60 


WYETH  S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


I 


i^ 


and  run  away  before  we  entered  upon  the  difficul- 
ties and  hardships  of  our  expedit  on. 

Nothing  of  importance  occurred  for  the  first  ten 
days  after  we  left  Pierre's  Valley.  Our  huntsmen 
were  abroad  in  pursuit  of  buffaloes,  when  they 
were  alarmed  at  the  sight  of  a  large  body  of  the 
Black-foot  trib(^  who  had  been  watching  our  move- 
ments. Captain  Sublet  was  not  a  little  alarmed, 
for  he  had  with  him  his  whole  stock  of  furs,  very 
large  in  quantity  and  valuable  in  quality,  which  we 
were  told  would  be  worth  eighty  thousand  dollars 
in  St.  Louis.  But  all  the  world  exaggerates  ;  nor 
even  were  we  of  the  Oregon  expedition  entirely 
free  from  it,  although  not  to  be  compared  with  Hall 
Jackson  Kelly,  who  never  stops  short  of  superla- 
tives, if  we  may  Judge  by  his  publications.  But 
he  says,  by  way  of  apology,  that  it  is  needful  that 
the  friends  of  the  contemplated  Oregon  colony 
should  possess  a  little  of  the  active  and  vital  principle 
of  enthusiasm,  that  shields  against  disappointments, 
and  against  the  presumptuous  o[)inions  and  insults  of 
others.  Now  the  fact  is,  the  s^.inguine  and  enthusi- 
astic Mr.  Kelly  was  never  in  that  country,  nor 
nearer  to  it  than  Boston ;  and  his  zeal  in  the  colo- 
nization of  that  dreary  territory  led  him  to  believe 
what  he  wished,  and  to  disbelieve  every  thing  ad- 
verse to  his  favorite  enterprise.  He  had  a  right 
to  enjoy  his  opinion ;  but  when  he  took  unwearied 
pains  to  make  ignorant  people  believe  as  he  did, 
he  was  the  remote  cause  of  much  misery  and  last- 
ing regret  in  more  than  half  the  adventurers  from 
Cambridge.  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind,  we  know 
what  will  be  the  consequence.  But  our  business 
is  not  to  censure  from  a  disposition  to  find  fault, 


r 


i 


fficul- 

st  ten 

tsmen 

they 

of  the 

move- 

unied, 

very 

ch  we 

dollars 

;  nor 

;ntirely 

th  Hall 

uperla- 

.     But 

ul  that 

colony 

irinciple 

itments, 

isults  of 

enthusi- 

itry,  nor 

he  colo- 

>  believe 

ling  ad- 

a  right 

iwearied 

he  did, 

uid  last- 

3rs  from 

va  know 

business 

id  fault, 


WYETH  S    OREGON   EXPEDITION. 


61 


but  to  warn  others  from  falling  into  the  errors  and 
difliculties  which  attended  nie  and  my  companions, 
and  chielly  through  the  misinformation  of  persons 
who  never  saw  the  country. 

Each  man,  when  we  left  St.  Louis,  was  allowed 
to  carry  but  ten  pounds'  weight  of  his  own  private 
baggage,  and  not  every  one  to  encumber  his  march 
with  whatever  he  chose ;  and  we  adhered  to  that 
order  on  our  return.  We  were  ten  days  in*passing 
over  the  Rocky  Mountains  ingoing,  and  nine  in  re- 
turning ;  and  I  repeat  it  as  my  fixed  opinion,  that 
we  never  should  have  reached  tlie  western  foot  of 
the  mountains  had  we  not  been  under  the  guard 
and  guidance  of  Captain  Sublet,  and  his  experi- 
enced company.  He  was  acquainted  with  the 
best  way,  and  the  best  mode  of  travelling.  He 
knew  the  Indian  chiefs  and  they  knew  him,  and 
each  confided  in  the  other.  An  anecdote  will  illus- 
trate this.  There  was  a  hunters'  fort  or  temporary 
place  of  defence  occupied  by  about  a  dozen  white 
beaver-trappers  from  St.  Louis,  where  were  de- 
posited furs,  and  goods  belonging  to  the  troop  of 
trappers,  and  that  to  a  considerable  amount.  One 
day  this  small  garrison  was  alarmed  at  the  sight  of 
about  six  hundred  warriors  approaching  on  horse- 
back. Upon  this  they  barred  their  gate,  -aiA 
closed  every  door  and  window  against  the  Indians^ 
but  with  faint  hopes  of  repelling  such  a  powerful 
host  of  well-armed  savages;  for  they  had  no  cyther 
idea  but  that  they  had  come  for  their  destruction. 
But  when  the  Indians  saw  them  shutting  them- 
selves up,  they  displayed  the  white  flag,  and  made 
signs  to  the  white  men  to  open  their  fort,  for  they 
came  to  trade  and  not  to  fight.  And  the  little 
garrison  thought  it  better  to  trust  to  Indian  honor 

6 


•4 


62 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


fi-'i 


ii'ir 


Pi 


than  risk  savage  slaughter  or  captivity ;  and  accord- 
ingly they  unbarred  their  doors  and  let  the  chiefs 
in  v^^ith  every  expression  of  cordiality  and  confi- 
dence. After  remaining  nine  days,  they  departed 
in  peace.  And  what  ought  to  be  recorded  to  their 
honor,  the  white  people  did  not  miss  a  single  article, 
although  axes,  and  utensils,  and  many  other  things 
were  lying  about,  desirable  to  Indians.  The 
savages  did  not  consider,  as  white  men  too  often 
do,  —  that  ^^  might  is  right.^^  When  I  expressed 
my  surprise  at  it,  one  of  the  white  trappers  replied, 
"  Why,  the  word  of  these  trading  Indians  is  as 
good  as  the  Bible  J''' 

We  were  surprised  to  find  the  Indians  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  mountains,  and  all  round  Pierre's 
Valley,  and  the  Black-foot  tribe,  and  the  Shosho- 
nees,  or  Snake-tribe,  so  well  provided  with  mus- 
kets, powder  and  ball,  woollen  cloth,  and  many 
other  articles,  until  we  were  informed  that  Mr. 
Mackenzie,  an  established  and  wealthy  Indian  tra- 
der, had  long  supplied  them  with  every  article  they 
desired.  Had  the  Captain  of  our  band  been 
acquainted  with  this  fact,  and  also  been  informed 
of  the  trading  connexion  between  the  Indians  and 
the  two  brothers,  William  and  Milton  Sublet,  be- 
fore he  started  from  home,  we  should  have  avoided 
a  great  deal  of  trouble,  and  he  escaped  a  great  deal 
of  expense,  and  for  aught  I  know,  suffering ;  for  the 
last  we  heard  of  him,  he  was  to  pass  the  winter 
at  the  Salmon  river. 

From  all  I  could  learn,  St.  Louis  was  the  depot, 
or  head-quarters  of  the  commerce  with  the  Indians. 
Mackenzie,  I  was  informed,  has  a  steam-boat  called 
the  Yellow-stone,  by  which  he  keeps  up  a  trade 
with  the  natives  inhabiting  the  region  watered  by 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


63 


cord- 
h^efs 
;onfi- 
irted 
their 
tide, 
hings 
The 
often 
essed 
)lied, 
is  as 

in  the 
ierre's 
losho- 
1  mus- 
many 
It  Mr. 
an  tra- 
e  I  hey 
I  been 
formed 
ns  and 
et,  be- 
voided 
at  deal 
for  the 
winter 

depot, 
iidians. 
:  called 
I  trade 
red  by 


the  river  of  that  name.  The  Yellowstone  is  a  noble 
river,  being  eight  hundred  and  thirty-seven  miles 
from  the  point  where  Captain  Clarke  reached  it 
to  the  Missouri,  and  is  so  far  navigable  for  batteaux ; 
and  eight  hundred  and  fifty  feet  wide  at  its  conflu- 
ence with  the  river  just  named.  By  all  accounts, 
the  superiority  of  the  Yellow-stone  river  over  the 
Columbia,  or  Oregon,  for  a  settlement  of  New- 
England  adventurers,  in  point  of  fertility,  climate, 
and  pleasantness,  is  such  as  to  impress  one  with 
regret  that  ever  we  extended  our  views  beyond  it ; 
for  the  lamentable  fact  is,  that  the  trade  with  the 
Indians  all  round  he  Rocky  Mountains,  and  beyond 
it  to  the  Oregon  territory  and  Columbia  river,  is 
actually  forestalled,  or  pre-occupied  by  wealthy, 
established,  and  experienced  traders  residing  at,  or 
near  St.  Louis,  while  we  are  more  than  twelve 
hundred  miles  in  their  rear,  and  very  far  behind 
them  in  time.  Beside  all  these  considerations,  we 
may  add  another  of  great  importance ;  I  mean  the 
fact,  that  Mackenzie's  and  Sublet's  white  trappers, 
or  hunters,  are  a  sort  of  half  Indians  in  their  manners 
and  habits, and  could  assimilate  with  them,  while  we 
are  strangers  to  the  savages,  and  they  to  us,  with  all 
the  dislikes  natural  to  both  sides.  Captain  Sublet, 
who  appears  to  be  a  worthy  character,  and  of  sound 
judgment,  perceived  this,  and  must  have  seen,  at 
once,  that  he  had  nothing  to  fear  from  us,  and 
therefore  he  paid  us  great  attention,  conciliated  and 
made  use  of  us,  and  while  he  aided  us,  he  benefit- 
ted his  own  concern,  and  all  without  the  least  spice 
of  jealousy,  well  knowing  the  impossibility,  under 
existing  circumstances,  that  we  could  supplant  him 
in  the  affections  of  the  red  men  of  Missouri  and 
Oregon, 


1 


64 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


I 


!lV 


The  white  traders,  and  the  Indians  have,  if  we 
may  so  term  it,  an  annual  Fair,  that  has  been 
found  by  experience  profitable  to  both  sides.  It  is 
true  the  white  trader  barters  a  tawdry  bauble  of 
a  few  cents'  value,  for  a  skin  worth  fifty  of  it.  And 
so  have  we  in  our  India  shawls,  and,  a  few  years 
since,  in  Leghorn  hats,  in  which  we  were  taxed  as 
high  as  the  white  merchant  taxes  the  equally  silly 
Indian.  Coffee  was  sold  at  two  dollars  a  pound,  and 
so  was  tobacco.  Indeed  some  of  ns  gave  that  price 
to  Mr.  Nathaniel  J.  VVyeth  for  the  latter  article,  a 
luxury  more  coveted  by  men  in  our  situation,  anx- 
ious and  fatigued  as  we  were,  than  whisky  or  brandy. 
This  was  the  case  under  Lewis  and  Clarke.  When 
deprived  of  tobacco,  they  cut  up  the  old  handles  of 
tomahawks,  which  had  been  used  as  pipes,  and 
chewed  the  wood  for  the  sake  of  its  smell  and 
smack.  It  is  not  a  singular  case.  It  has  been 
experienced  among  sailors  at  sea.  They  have 
pined  more  for  the  lulling  effects  of  that  nauseous 
weed  than  for  ardent  spirits  ;  and  it  has  been  known 
that  men  will  mutiny  sooner  when  deprived  of 
their  tobacco,  than  when  deprived  of  their  usual 
food  and  rum.  There  was  no  small  gruml)ling  on 
being  obliged  to  buy  tobacco  out  of  what  we 
thought  common  stock,  at  the  rate  above  men- 
tioned, being,  as  we  thought,  all  members  of  a 
commonwealth. 

The  following  may  serve  to  show  the  knowledge 
or  instinct  of  horses. 

When  marching  on  our  return  home  in  the  troop 
of  Captain  Sublet,  not  far  from  the  eastern  de- 
clivity of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  we  were  met  by  a 
large  body  of  Indians  on  horseback.  Sublet  gen- 
erally kept   seven  videts  about  two  miles   ahead 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


65 


of  his  main  body.  The  horses  of  this  advanced 
guard  suddenly  refused  to  go  on,  and  turned  round, 
and  appeared  alarmed,  but  the  riders  knew  not  the 
cause  of  it.  Captain  Sublet  rode  up,  and  said,  that 
he  knew  by  the  behaviour  of  the  horses  that  there 
was  an  enemy  ahead.  He  said  there  was  a  valley 
several  miles  off  where  he  apprehended  we  might 
be  attacked.  He  therefore  ordered  everv  man  to 
examine  his  arms,  and  be  ready  for  action.  After 
riding  a  few  miles  we  discovered  a  large  moving 
body  of  a  living  something.  Some  of  us  thought  it 
was  a  drove  of  buflfaloes ;  but  the  Captain  said  no, 
because  they  were  of  different  colors,  whereas  bi- 
sons, or  buffaloes  appear  all  of  one  color.  After 
viewing  them  through  his  glass,  he  said  they  were 
a  body  of  the  Black-foot  tribe^  who  had  on  their 
war  dresses,  with  their  faces  painted,  bare  heads, 
and  other  signs  of  hostility. 

Their  appearance  was  very  singular,  and,  to  some 
of  us,  terrible.  There  was  a  pretty  fresh  breeze 
of  w^ind,  so  as  to  blow  the  long  manes  and  tales  of 
their  horses  out  straight.  Nor  was  this  all :  the 
wind  had  the  same  effect  on  the  long  black  hair  of 
the  warriors,  which  gave  them  not  only  a  grotesque 
but  a  terrific  appearance.  Added  to  all  this,  they 
kept  up  a  most  horrid  yell  or  war-hoop.  They 
rode  up  and  completely  surrounded  us ;  and  then 
all  was  silent.  Captain  Sublet  rode  up  to  the  chief, 
and  expressed  his  hope  that  all  was  peace.  The  sav- 
age replied  that  there  should  be  peace  on  their  part, 
on  condition  that  Sublet  should  give  them  Ucenty-five 
pounds  of  tobacco,  which  was  soon  complied  with, 
when  the  Indian  army  remounted  their  horses,  and 
rode  off  at  full  speed  as  they  came  on :  and  we 

6* 


Bf  t-^ 


i 


'I 


66 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


n    • 


6?'    ■ 


f- 


i 


pushed  off  with  like  speed,  lest  they  should  repent 
their  bargain  and  return  upon  us  to  mend  it. 

Who  will  say  that  this  gallant  body  of  cavalry 
were  not  wiser  than  the  common  run  of  white  sol- 
diers, to  make  peace  for  a  qtiid  f  and  thereby  save 
their  horses  and  their  own  skins  ?  Out  of  what 
book  did  this  corps  of  savage  dragoons  learn  that 
discretion  was  the  better  part  of  valor?  —  We  an- 
swer, From  out  of  that  book  of  Nature  which  taught 
the  videts'  horses  that  an  enemy  was  in  the  wind. 
The  liorse  is  the  dumbest  of  all  beasts.  He  is 
silent  under  torture.  He  never  groans  but  once,  x 
and  that  is  his  last.  Did  they  roar  like  bulls,  or 
squeal  like  hogs,  they  would  be  useless  in  an  army. 
That  noble  animal  suffers  from  man  a  shameful 
weight  of  cruel  usage  in  town  and  country. 

The  wild  horses  are  a  great  curiosity.  They 
traverse  the  couiitrv,  and  stroll  about  in  droves 
from  a  dozen  to  twenty  or  thirty;  and  always  ap- 
pear to  have  a  leader,  like  a  gander  to  a  flock  of 
geese.  When  our  own  horses  were  feeding  fetter- 
ed around  our  encampments,  the  wild  horses  would 
come  down  to  them,  and  seem  to  examine  them, 
as  if  counting  them  ;  and  would  sometimes  come 
quite  up  to  them  if  we  kept  out  of  sight ;  but  when 
they  discovered  us,  they  would  one  and  all  give  a 
jump  off  and  fly  like  the  wind. 

There  is  a  method  of  catching  a  wild  horse,  that 
may  appear  to  many  "a  traveller's  story."  It  is 
called  creasing  a  horse.  The  meaning  of  the  term 
is   unknown  to  me.*      It  consists  in    shooting  a 

*  Creasins;  may  bo  flcrived  from  crazc^  or  the  French  ecraser,  or 
the  Teutonic  krossa,  or  the  English  crush,  to  bruise,  overwlielm, 
or  subdue  without  liilling.  It  may  be  Spanish;  for  it  is  said  that 
the  modern  South  Americans  practise  the  same  devise.    It  would 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


67 


ralry 
sol- 


I 


horse  in  the  neck  with  a  single  ball  so  as  to  graze 
his  neck  bone,  and  not  cut  tlie  pith  of  it.  This  stuns 
the  horse  and  he  i'alls  to  the  ground,  but  he  recov- 
ers again,  and  is  as  well  as  ever,  all  but  a  little  sore- 
ness in  the  neck,  which  soon  gets  well.  But  in 
his  short  state  of  stupefaction,  the  hunter  runs  up, 
and  twists  a  noose  around  the  skin  of  his  nose,  and 
then  secures  him  with  a  thong  of  buffalo-hide.  I  do 
not  give  it  merely  as  a  story  related  ;  but  I  believe  it, 
however  improbable  it  may  appear,  because  I  saw 
it  done.  I  saw  an  admirable  marksman,  young 
Andrew  Sublet,  fire  at  a  fine  horse,  and  after  he 
fell,  treat  him  in  the  way  I  have  mentioned  ;  and 
he  brought  the  horse  into  camp,  and  it  turned  out 
to  be  a  very  fine  one.  The  marvel  of  the  story  is, 
that  the  dextrous  niarksman  shall  shoot  so  pre- 
cisely as  only  to  graze  the  vital  part;  and  yet  those 
who  know  these  matters  better  than  I  do,  say,  that 
they  conceive  it  possible. 

After  we  had  made  peace  with  the  large  body  of 
the  Black-foot  Indians,  for,  as  we  may  say,  a  quid 
of  tobacco,  nothing  occurred  worth  relating  until 
we  arrived  at  the  town  of  Independence,  being  the 
first  white  settlement »in  our  way  homewards.  I 
would,  however,  here  remark,  that  the  warlike 
body  just  mentioned,  though  of  the  fierce  Black- 
foot  tribe,  hunted  and  fought  independently  of  that 
troop  with  which  we  had  a  battle  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains ;  and  were  most  probably  ignorant  of 
that  affair,  in  which  a  chief  was  treacherously  shot 
by  one  Antoine,  who  was  half  Indian  and  half 
French,  when  bearing  a  white  flag,  and  with  which 

seem  as  if  it  jarred  the  vertebrce,  or  bony  channel  of  the  neck 
without  cuttint;  any  important  vessel  or  nerve.  But  let  tha  fact  be 
established  before  we  reason  upon  it. 


68 


WYETh's   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


%m  *' 


1 


11 


Id. 


nefarious  deed  I  believe  Captain  Sublet  had  no 
concern.  But  of  all  this  I  cannot  speak  with 
certainty,  as  I  myself  was  half  a  mile  distant, 
when  the  Black-foot  chief  was  shot,  and  his  scarlet 
robe  torn  off  of  him  by  the  mongrel  Indian,  as  a 
trophy  instead  of  his  scalp ;  for  the  Indians  return- 
ed their  fire  so  promptly,  and  continued  fighting  so 
long,  even  after  dark,  that  there  was  no  time  nor 
opportunity  of  his  securing  that  evidence  of  his 
savage  blood  and  mode  of  warfare. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  town  of  Independence, 
Dr.  Jacob  ^Wyeth,  Palmer,  Styles,  and  myself 
bought  a  canoe,  being  tired  of  travelling  by  land, 
and  impatient  to  get  on,  and  this  was  the  last  of  my 
money  except  a  single  six-cent  piece.  A  thick  fog 
prevented  our  early  departure,  as  it  would  be  danger- 
ous to  proceed  on  account  of  the  snags  and  sawyers  in 
the  river.  To  pass  away  the  tedious  time,  I  strolled 
out  around  the  town,  and  lost  my  direct  way  back. 
At  length  the  fog  cleared  off,  and  after  my  com- 
panions had  waited  for  me  an  hour,  they  pushed  off 
and  left  me  behind  !  They,  be  sure,  left  word  that 
they  would  wait  for  me  at  the  next  tovi'n,  Boons- 
viHe,  twenty  miles  distance.  I  hurried,  however, 
as  fast  as  I  could  five  miles  down  the  banks  of  the 
river ;  when,  finding  that  I  could  not  overtake  them, 
and  being  fatigued  by  running,  I  gave  over  the 
chase  in  despair.  I  was  sadly  perplexed,  and  vex- 
ed, at  what  I  conceived  worse  than  savage  usage. 
In  this  state  of  mind,  I  saw  a  small  skiff,  with  a 
pair  of  oars,  when  an  heroic  idea  came  into  my 
half-crazed  brain,  and  feeling  my  absolute  necessi- 
ties, I  acted  like  certain  ancient  and  some  modern 
heVoes,  and  jumped  into  the  boat,  cast  off  her  paint- 
er, and  pulled  away  for  dear  life  down  the  stream. 


1 


WYETH's   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


69 


d  no 
with 
^tanty 
:arlet 
as  a 
turn- 
»g  so 
e  nor 
sf  his 

ence, 
nyself 

land, 
of  my 
ck  fog 
anger- 
yers  in 
trolled 
^  back. 
y  com- 
bed off 
rd  that 
Boons- 
wever, 
of  the 
J  them, 
er  the 
id  vex- 
usage. 
with  a 
ito  my 
lecessi- 
modern 
r  paint- 
stream. 


The  owner  of  the  boat  discovered  me  when  not 
much  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  on  my  way. 
He  and  another  man  got  into  a  canoe  and  rowed 
after  me,  and  gained  upon  me ;  on  perceiving 
which,  I  laid  out  all  my  strength,  and  although  two 
to  one,  I  distanced  them,  and  they  soon  saw  they 
could  not  overtake  me.  When  I  started  it  was 
twelve  oVlock,  and  I  got  to  the  next  town,  Boons- 
ville,  the  sun  half  an  hour  high,  —  the  distance  about 
twenty  miles.  When  my  skiff  struck  the  shore 
my  pursuers  were  about  twenty  rods  behind  me. 
I  ran  into  the  first  barn  of  a  tavern  I  could  reach. 
They  soon  raised  the  nei<»hl)ors,  and  placed  a  watch 
around  the  barn,  one  side  of  which  opened  into  a 
cornfield.  In  searching  for  me  they  more  than 
once  trod  over  me,  but  the  thickness  of  \\v,  hay 
prevented  them  from  feeling  me.  I  knew  the  se- 
vere effects  of  their  laws,  by  which  those  who  were 
too  poor  to  pay  the  fine  were  to  atone  for  their 
poverty  by  stripes,  which  were  reckoned  to  be  worth 
a  dollar  a  strij)e  in  that  cheap  country  ;  and  hence 
I  lay  snug  in  the  hay  two  nights  and  one  day  with- 
out any  thing  to  eat.  Hunger  at  length  forced  me 
from  my  hiding-place,  when  I  went  into  the  tavern, 
where  1  found  Dr.  Jacob  Wyeth,  Walter  Palmer, 
and  Styles.  I  told  the  landlord  I  was  starving  for 
want  of  food,  and  he  gave  me  suj)per  ;  and  then  1 
went  back  into  tiie  barn  again,  where  I  slept  that 
night. 

The  next  morning  I  went  into  the  tavern  again, 
and  there  I  found  my  pursuers,  and  they  found  their 
prisoner,  ^^  horn  they  soon  put  under  the  custody 
of  two  constables,  who  ordered  me  breakfast, 
which  having  eaten  with  a  good  relish,  I  watched 
my  opportunity,  while  they  were  standing  thick 


70 


wyeth's  oregox  expedition. 


i 

Is 


11^ 


around  the  bar,  and  crept  unobserved  out  of  the  back- 
door into  the  extensive  cornfield,  and  thence  into 
the  barn  window  out  of  which  they  threw  manure, 
and  regained  my  snug  hiding-hole,  where  I  re- 
mained one  day  and  one  night  more.  I  now  and 
then  could  see  the  constables  and  their  pos.se  prowl- 
ing about  the  barn,  through  a  crevice  in  the  boat  ^s. 
In  the  midst  of  my  fears,  I  was  amused  with  the 
solemn,  and  concernful  phizes  of  the  two  consta- 
bles, and  one  or  two  others.  In  the  morning  very 
early,  I  ventured  out  again,  and  ran  down  to  the 
river ;  and  there  spying  a  boat,  and  feeling  heroic, 
I  jumped  into  her  and  pushed  across  the  river,  and 
landed  on  the  opposite  bank,  so  as  to  elude  the 
pursuit  of  the  authorities,  who  I  knew  would  be 
after  me  on  the  ri«;ht  bank  of  the  river,  while  I 
marched  on  the  lelt.  When  I  came  to  the  ferry 
near  St.  Louis,  I  had  only  a  six-cent  piece,  which 
the  ferryman  took  for  his  full  fare  which  was 
twelve  cents,  and  so  I  got  safe  to  St.  Louis,  but 
with  scarcely  clothing  enough  for  decency,  not  to 
mention  comfort :  and  yet  I  kept  up  a  good  heart, 
and  never  once  despaired.  My  companions  arrived 
a  day  before  me  ;  they  on  Thursday,  I  on  Friday, 
at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  ;  they  in  the  steam- 
boat, like  gentlemen,  while  I,  the  youngest  in  the 
whole  Oregon  company,  like  a  runaway.  But  I 
do  not  regret  the  difference,  seeing  I  have  a  story 
worth  telling,  and  worth  hearing. 

Where  to  get  a  lodging  that  night  I  did  not 
know,  nor  where  to  obtain  a  morsel  of  bread. 
I  went  up  to  a  large  tavern,  and  asked  permission 
of  the  keeper  to  lodge  in  his  barn  that  night,  but  he 
sternly  refused.  I  then  went  to  the  other  tavern, 
and  made   the   like   request,    when    the  landlord 


back- 
iiito 
mure, 
I   re- 
w  and 
)rowl- 
oai  ^s. 
h  the 
onsta- 
g  very 
to  the 
leroic, 
r,  and 
3e  the 
uld  be 
vhile  I 
ferry 
which 
ih   was 
lis,  but 
not  to 
I  heart, 
arrived 
Friday, 
steam - 
t  in  the 
But  I 
a  story 

did  not 
bread, 
rmission 
t,  but  he 
•  tavern, 
landlord 


WYETH's  OREGON    EXPEDITION. 


71 


granted  it,  saying  that  he  never  refused  a  man 
sleeping  in  his  barn  who  was  too  poor  to  pay  for  a 
lodging  in  his  house.  I  wish  1  knew  his  name.  I 
turned  in  and  had  a  very  good  night's  rest.  Should 
any  one  enquire  how  I  came  to  leave  my  old  com- 
panions, and  they  me,  I  need  only  say  that  I  had 
a  very  serious  quarrel  with  one  of  them,  even  to 
blows ;  and  with  that  one  too  who  ought  to  have 
been  the  last  to  treat  me  with  neglect ;  "  and  fur- 
.ther  the  deponent  saith  not." 

The  next  morning  I  went  round  in  search  of 
work,  but  no  one  seemed  disposed  to  hire  me ;  nor 
do  I  much  wonder  at  it ;  for  in  truth  I  was  so 
ragged  and  dirty,  that  I  had  nothing  to  recommend 
me  ;  and  1  suffered  more  depression  of  spirits  during 
the  folio \.  ing  six  days  of  my  sojourn  at  St.  Louis, 
than  in  any  part  of  my  route.  The  steam-boats  re- 
fused me  and  Dr.  Wyeth  started  off  for  New  Orleans 
before  I  could  see  him.  Palmer  let  himself  by  the 
month  on  board  a  steam-boat  running  between  St. 
Louis  and  Independence,  while  I  was  left  alone  at 
the  former  place  six  days  without  employ,  victuals, 
or  decent  clothing.  I  could  not  bear  to  go  to  peo- 
ple's doors  to  beg ;  but  I  went  on  board  steam-boats 
and  begged  for  food.  I  was  such  a  picture  of  wretch- 
edness that  I  did  not  wonder  they  refused  to  hire  me. 
My  dress  was  buck-skin  moccasins,  and  pantaloons ; 
the  remains  of  a  shirt  I  put  on  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, the  remnants  of  a  kersey  waistcoat  which 
I  had  worn  ever  since  I  left  Cambridge,  and  a  hat 
I  had  worn  all  the  time  from  Boston,  but  without 
any  coat  whatever,  or  socks,  or  stockings ;  and  to 
add  to  the  wretchedness  of  my  appearance,  I  was 
very  dirty,  and  I  could  not  help  it.  My  looks  drew 
the  attention  of  a  great  many  spectators.    I  thought 


72 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


if;!   li 


(l*ii 


n 


very  hard  of  it  then,  but  I  have  since  reflected,  and 
must  say  that  when  people  saw  a  strong  young 
man  of  eij^hteen  in  high  health,  and  yet  so  nnsera- 
ble  in  appearance,  it  was  natural  in  tliein  to  con- 
clude that  he  must  be  some  criminal  escaped  from 
justice,  or  some  vagabond  suffering  under  the  just 
efl'ects  of  [lis  own  crimes. 

At  length,  wearied  out  by  my  ill  forturo,  I 
plucked  up  courage,  and  went  to  the  Constitution 
steam-boat,  Captain  Tufts,  of  Charlestown,  near 
Boston,  and  told  him  my  name  and  family  ;  and 
detailed  to  him  my  sufferings,  and  said  that  he  must 
give  me  a  passage,  and  I  would  work  for  it.  To  my 
great  joy  he  consented,  and  he  gave  me  shirt,  panta- 
loons, &;c.  ;  and  I  acted  as  a  fireman,  or  one  who 
feeds  the  fire  with  pine  wood  under  the  steam- 
boilers.  I  forbear  narrating  the  particulars  of  my 
sufferings  for  want  of  food  during  the  six  days  I  tar- 
ried at  St.  Louis.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  1  was  in  a 
condition  of  starvation,  and  all  owing  to  my  wretch- 
ed dppearance.  When  I  at  times  went  on  board  the 
steam-boats,  I  was  glad  to  scrape  up  any  thing  after 
the  sailors  and  firemen  had  doneeatin^j.  At  length 
I  obtained  employ  in  the  steamboat  Constitution, 
and  a  passage  to  New-Orleans,  on  the  condi- 
tion of  acting  as  one  of  the  firemen,  there  being 
twelve  in  all,  with  five  men  as  sailors,  and  two 
hundred  and  forty  passengers,  partly  emigrants,  but 
chiefly  men  belonging  to  the  settlements  on  the 
Mississippi,  going  down  to  Natchez,  and  to  New- 
Orleans  to  work.  We  tarried  one  ni^ht  at  the 
Natchez;  but  soon  after  we  left  it  the  c/io/em  broke 
out  amon^j'the  passengers,  eighty  of  whom  died 
before  we  reached  New-Orleans,  and  two  of  our 
own  fiieinc  n.     A  most  shocking  scene  followed. 


[],  and 
young 
isera- 
I  con- 
fro  m 
e  just 

uro,  I 
tution 
near 
and 
must 
To  my 
panta- 
ic  who 
steam- 
of  my 
s  I  tar- 
^as  in  a 
,v  retch - 
lard  the 
1"  after 
length 
itution, 
condi- 
e  being 
nd  two 
nts,  but 
on  the 
)  Nevv- 
at  the 
a  broke 
im  died 
of  our 
►wed. 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


73 


I  felt  discouraged.  I\Iy  miseries  seemed  endless. 
After  trying  day  after  day  in  vain  to  get  a  passage 
in  a  steam-boat,  I  was  made  happy  in  procuring 
one,  though  I  j)aid  for  it,  by  working  as  a  fireman, 
the  hardest  and  most  disagreeable  occupation  on 
board  ;  still  I  was  contented,  as  1  had  victuals  enough 
to  eat ;  and  yet,  after  all,  I  saw  men  perishing  every 
minute  about  me,  and  throvvu  ii.to  the  river  like 
so  many  dead  hogs.  It  is  an  unexaggerated  fact 
that  I  witnessed  more  misery  in  the  space  of  eight 
months  than  most  old  men  experience  in  a  long  life. 

On  arriving  at  New-Orleans,  Captain  Tufts  sent 
off  every  man  of  the  passengers,  leaving  those  only 
who  belon<ied  to  the  boat.  He  gave  me  shirts  and 
other  clothing,  and  offered  me  twenty  dollars  a 
month,  if  I  would  go  back  to  St.  Louis  with  him. 
I  remained  on  l)oard  about  a  week  ;  and  so  desirous 
was  1  to  get  home,  that  I  preferred  going  ashore, 
although  I  knew  that  the  yellow  fever  and  black 
vomit,  as  well  as  cholera  were  committing  great 
havoc  in  the  city.  The  shops,  stores,  taverns,  and 
even  the  gambling-houses,  were  shut  up,  and  people 
were  dying  in-doors,  and  out  of  doors,  much  faster 
than  they  could  be  buried.  More  white  people 
were  seized  with  it  than  black;  but  when  the  latter 
were  attacked,  more  died  than  the  former.  The 
negroes  sunk  under  the  disorder  at  once.  When  a 
negro  gets  very  sick,  he  loses  all  his  spirits,  and 
refuses  all  remedies.  He  wishes  to  die,  and  it  is 
no  wonder,  if  he  believes  that  he  shall  go  into  a 
pleasant  country  where  there  are  no  white  men  or 
women. 

I  soon  got  full  employ  as  a  grave-digger,  at  two 
dollars  a  day,  and  could  have  got  twice  that  sum 
had  I  been  informed  of  the  true  state  of  things.     In 


74 


WYETH's   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


.:t 


l.i 


f         -Jl 


i 


the  first  three  days  we  dug  a  separate  grave  for 
each  person ;  but  we  soon  found  that  we  could  not 
clear  the  hearses  and  carts.  I  counted  eighty-seven 
dead  bodies  uninterred  on  the  ground.  Yet  where 
I  worked,  was  only  one  of  the  three  grave-yards  be- 
longing to  the  city,  and  the  other  two  were  larger. 
We  therefore  began  on  a  new  plan.  There  were 
twenty-five  of  us  grave-diggers.  We  dug  a  trench 
fifty-seven  feet  long,  eight  feet  wide,  and  four  feet 
deep,  and  laid  them  as  compactly  as  we  could,  and 
filled  up  the  vacant  spaces  with  children.  It  was  an 
awful  piece  of  business.  Inthislarge  trench  we  buried 
about,  perhaps,  three  hundred  ;  and  this  business  we 
carried  on  about  a  month.  During  this  time,  you 
might  traverse  the  streets  of  New-Orleans,  without 
meeting  a  single  person,  except  those  belonging  to 
the  hearses,  and  carts,  loaded  with  the  dead.  Men 
were  picked  up  in  the  morning  who  died  after  dark 
before  they  could  reach  their  own  houses.  If  you 
ask  me  if  they  died  with  yellow  fever,  or  cholera, 
I  must  answer  that  I  cannot  tell.  Some  said  the 
one,  and  some  the  other.  Every  thing  was  confu- 
sion. If  a  negro  was  sent  by  his  master  to  a  car- 
penter, for  what  they  called  a  coffin,  which  was 
bnly  a  rough  board  box,  he  was  commonly  robbed 
of  it  before  he  got  home.  I  myself  saw  an  assault 
of  this  kind,  when  the  poor  black  slave  was  knocked 
<iown,  and  the  rude  coffin  taken  from  him.  New- 
Orleans  is  a  dreadful  place  in  the  eyes  of  a  New- 
'England  man.  They  keep  Sunday  as  we  in  Boston 
•keep  the  4th  of  July,  or  any  other  day  of  merriment 
and  frolic.  It  is  also  a  training  day  every  other 
Sunday  for  their  military  companies. 

I  was  in  part  witness  to  a  shocking  sight  at  the 
marine  hospital,  where  had   been  many  patients 


r 


f 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


75 


^e  for 
d  not 

even 
vhere 
h  be- 
arger. 

were 
rench 
ir  feet 

d,  and 
tvasan 
buried 
ess  we 

e,  you 
ithout 

ling  to 
Men 
Rr  dark 
If  you 
jholera, 
.aid  the 
;  confu- 
3  a  car- 
ich  was 
robbed 
assault 
mocked 
New- 
a  New- 
i  Boston 
3rriment 
ry  other 

It  at  the 
patients 


I 


vv'th  the  yellow  fever.  When  the  doctors,  and 
those  who  had  the  care  of  that  establishment  had 
deserted  the  house,  between  twenty-five  and  thirty 
dead  bodies  were  left  in  it ;  and  these  were  so 
offensive  from  putrefaction,  that  when  the  city  cor- 
poration heard  of  it,  they  ordered  the  house,  to- 
gether with  the  bodies  to  be  burnt  up ;  but  this  was 
not  strictly  complied  with.  A  number  of  negro 
slaves  were  employed  to  remove  the  bodies,  which 
being  covered  with  wood  and  other  combustibles, 
were  all  consumed  together. 

At  length  I  was  attacked  myself  with  symptoms 
of  the  yellow  fever,  —  violent  pain  in  my  head,  back, 
and  stomach.  I  lived  at  that  time  in  the  family  of 
a  Frenchman,  who,  among  his  various  occupations, 
pretended  to  skill  in  physic.  He  fed  me  on  castor 
oil.  I  took  in  one  day  four  wine-glasses  of  it,  which 
required  as  much  resolution  as  I  was  master  of: 
but  my  doctor  assured  rne  that  he  had  repeatedly 
scared  away  the  yellow  fever  at  the  beginning  of  it, 
by  large  and  often  repeated  doses  of  that  medicine. 
Its  operation  was  not  one  way,  but  every  way.  I 
thought  I  should  have  no  insides  left  to  go  home 
with.  Yet  is  it  a  fact,  and  I  record  it  with  pleasure, 
that  it  carried  off  all  my  dreadful  symptoms,  and  in  a 
very  few  days,  I  had  nothing  to  complain  of  but 
weakness,  which  a  good  appetite  soon  cured.  I 
therefore  recommend  a  man  in  the  first  stage  of 
yellow  fever  to  take  down  a  gill  of  castor  oil,  made 
as  hot  as  he  can  swallow  it ;  and  repeat  the  dose 
in  eight  hours. 

I  remained  nine  weeks  in  New-Orleans,  a  city  so  un- 
like Boston,  in  point  of  neatness,  order,  and  good  gov- 
ernment, that  I  do  not  wonder  at  its  character  for  un- 
healtbiness.  Stagnant  water  remains  in  the  streets  as 


i 


h  '.I 


76 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


'  r 


m 


l[ 


i 


!  t  i\ 


green  as  grass,  with  a  steam  rising  out  of  it  that  may 
be  smelt  at  the  distance  of  half  a  mile.  Beside  this, 
their  population  is  so  mixed,  iiiat  they  appear  run- 
ning against  each,  other  in  the  streets,  every  one 
having  a  ditferent  ohject  and  a  different  comph^xion. 
In  one  thing  they  seem  to  be  agreed,  and  to  concur 
in  the  same  ohject,  namely,  gaming.  In  that  delir- 
ious pursuit,  they  all  speak  the  same  language,  and 
appear  to  run  down  the  same  road  to  ruin. 

I  am  glad  that  it  is  in  my  power  to  support  what 
I  have  said  respecting  the  Marine  Hospital,  by  the 
following  public  testimony,  published  by  authority, 
taken  from  one  of  their  newspapers. 

"New-Orleans. — The  following  report  from  a 
committe  appointed  to  examine  one  of  the  hospitals, 
will  account,  in  some  degree,  for  the  unprecedented 
mortality  which  has  afflicted  New-Orleans.  The 
report  is  addressed  to  the  mayor. 

*'  The  undersigned,  standing  committee  named 
by  the  city  council  during  the  prevalence  of  the 
epidemic  now  desolating  the  city,  have  the  honor 
to  report,  that,  in  consequencje  of  information  given 
by  sundry  respectable  persons,  relative  to  the  con- 
dition of  the  hospital  kept  by  Dr.  M'Farlane,  they 
repaired  to-day,  at  half-past  one  o'clock,  to  said 
hospital;  that  in  all  the  apartments  they  found  the 
most  disgusting  filth  ;  that  all  the  night  vessels  were 
full,  and  (hat  the  [)atients  have  all  declared  that  for 
a  long  time  they  had  received  no  kind  of  succour ; 
that  in  many  of  the  ai)artments  of  the  building  they 
found  corpses,  several  of  which  had  been  a  number 
of  days  in  putrefaction ;  that  thence  they  repaired 
to  a  chamber  adjoining  the  kitchen,  where  they 
found  the  body  of  a  negro,  which  had  been  a  long 
time  dead,  in  a  most  offensive  state.  They  finally 
went  to  another  apartment  oj)posite  the  kitchen, 


W^ETh's    OREGON   EXPEDITION. 


77 


may 
this, 
run- 
one 
?^ion. 
)ncur 
lelir- 
and 


which  was  equally  filthy  with  the  other  rooms,  and 
that  they  there  found  many  corpses  of  persons  a 
long  time  dead ;  that  in  a  bed,  between  others,  they 
found  a  man  dying,  stretched  upon  the  body  of  a 
man  many  days  dead. 

"  Finally,  they  declare  that  It  is  impossible  for 
one  to  form  an  idea  of  what  they  have  witnessed, 
without  he  had  himself  seen  it ;  that  it  is  indispen- 
sably necessary  for  the  patients  to  evacuate  this 
hospital,  and  above  all,  to  watch  lest  the  corpses  in 
a  state  of  putrefaction  occasion  pestilence  in  that 
quarter,  and  perhaps  in  the  whole  city. 

"  November  7.  The  standing  committee  has  the 
honor  to  present  the  following  additional  report. 

*'  In  one  of  the  apartments  where  were  many 
living  and  dead  bodies,  they  found  under  a  bed  a 
dead  body  partly  eaten,  whose  belly  and  entrails 
lay  upon  the  floor.  It  exhaled  a  most  pestiferous 
odor.  In  a  little  closet  upon  the  gallery  there  were 
two  dead  bodies,  one  of  which  lay  flat  upon  the 
floor,  and  the  other  had  his  feet  upon  the  floor  and 
his  back  upon  the  bed  forming  a  curve ;  the  belly 
prodigiously  swelled  and  the  thighs  green.  Under 
a  shed  in  the  yard  was  the  dead  body  of  a  negro,  off 
which  a  fowl  was  picking  worms.  The  number  of 
corpses  amounted  to  twelve  or  fourteen. 

"  Signed,  E.  A.  Cannon,  Chairman, 

Felix  Labatut, 

Alderman^  Second  IVard, 
Charles   Lee, 
Alderman,  First  Ward^ 

I  took  passage  in  the  ship  Henry  Thomson,  Cap- 
tain Williams,  and  arrived  in  Boston,  January  2d, 
1833,  after  an  abstnce  of  ten  months,  having  ex- 
perienced in  that  time  a  variety  of  hardships. 

7* 


Vll 


14.  L 


I 

'A 


»iii 


% 


78 


WYETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION/ 


CONCLUDING   REFLECTIONS. 


The  lesson  to  be  collected  from  this  short 
history  is  the  isjreat  danger  in  making  haste  to 
he  rich,  instead  of  relying  upon  patient  indus- 
try, which  never  fails  to  give  a  man  his  just 
deserts.  Making  haste  to  become  rich  is  the  most 
fruitful  source  of  the  calamities  of  life ;  for  here 
cunning,  contrivance,  and  circumvention,  take  the 
place  of  diligence.  After  the  schemer's  plans  have 
all  failed,  there  seems  only  one  tempting  means 
left  to  obtain  riches  in  a  hurry,  and  that  is  by  gam- 
ing, the  most  prosperous  invention  ever  devised  by 
the  arch  enemy  of  mankind ;  and  when  that  fails, 
the  next  downward  step  to  destruction,  excepting 
drunkenness,  is  robbery,  many  instances  of  which 
we  find  recorded  in  the  annals  of  Newgate  and  the 
records  of  the  Old  Bailey  in  London.  Such  atroci- 
ties have  nevf "  or  very  rarely,  occurred  in  our  own 
country,  and  never  will  so  long  as  we  are  wisely 
contented  with  the  fruits  of  patient  industry,  and 
so  long  as  we  believe  that  the  diligent  hand  maketh 
rich.  These  reflections  refer  to  extreme  cases,  and 
are  not  applicable,  or  meant  to  be  personally  appli- 
cable, to  the  unfortunate  expedition  in  which  we 
have  been  concerned.  It  is  not  meant  to  repre- 
hend those  enormous  vices  and  crimes  which  are 
known  in  the  old  countries,  but  only  to  correct 
a  spirit  of  discontent  in  men  well  situated  and  cir- 
cumstanced. *''•  Jfyou  stand  tvell,  stand  still,^^  says 
the  Italian  proverb. 

Some  may  say  this  doctrine,  if  put  in  practice, 
would  check  all  enterprise.  Not  entirely  so,  pro- 
vided the  means  and  the  end  were  cautiously  ad- 
justed.    Christopher  Columbus  ran  a  great  risk; 


CONCLUDING    REFLECTIONS 


79 


short 
te  to 
dus- 
just 
most 
here 
the 
have 
neans 
gam- 
ed by 
:  fails, 
epting 
which 
nd  the 
atroci- 
ir  own 
wisely 


7= 


and 


naketh 
es,  and 
'  appli- 
ich  we 
I  repre- 
lich  are 
correct 
and  cir- 
/,"  says 

>ractice, 
so,  pro- 
usly  ad- 
at  risk; 


yet  he  knew,  from  the  reasonings  of  his  capacious 
mind,  that  there  must  be  "  another  and  a  better 
world"  than  that  he  was  born  in;  and  under  that 
strong  and  irresistible  impression  he  tempted  the 
trackless  ocean  and  found  it.     But  what  shall  we 
say  of  our  Oregon  adventurers,  who  set  out  to  pass 
over  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  thence  down  the 
Columbia  river  to  the  Pacific  ocean,  in  boats  upon 
wheels?  and  that  too  with  a  heavy  load  of  goods,  and 
those  chiefly  of  iron.     What  renders  the   project 
more  surprising  is,  that  they  shouhl  take  with  them 
the  most  ponderous  articles  of  a  blacksmith's  shop, 
—  anvils,  and  a  large  vice.     It  is  more  than  proba- 
ble   that  the    old  and   long  established  wholesale 
Indian  traders  at  St.  Louis  laughed  in  their  sleeves, 
when  they  saw  sucli  a  cargo  fresh  from  the  city  of 
^^notions,^^  paraded  with  all  the  characteristic  con- 
fidence of  the  unwavering  Yankee  spirit.      After 
assuring  them  that  their  inijenious  and  well-con- 
structed    amphibious  vehicles   would  not  answer 
for  travelling  in  such  a  rough  country  as  they  must 
go  through,  they  purchased  all  three  of  them,  and 
advised  our   leader  to  buy  sheep  and  oxen  to  live 
on  between  the  white  settlements  and  the  country 
of  the  savages,  and  not  to  trust  to  their  guns  for 
food.     This  turned  out  very  wholesome  advice,  as 
they  must  have  starved  without  that  provision. 

The  party  under  Captains  Levvis  and  Clarke, 
sent  out  by  the  govt'rnment  of  the  United  States, 
consisted  of  nine  young  men  from  Kentucky,  four 
teen  soldiers  of  the  United  States  army  who  volun- 
teered their  services,  two  French  watermen,  —  an 
interpreter  and  hunter, — and  a  black  servant  belong- 
ing to  Captain  Clarke.  All  these,  except  the  last, 
were  enlisted  to  serve  as  privates  during  the  expe- 


■ 


i 


sr 


80 


WTETH's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


f  .' 


M 


i 


:{j' 


dition,  and  three  sergeants  were  appointed  from 
amongst  them  by  the  captains.  In  addition  to  these, 
were  engaged  a  corporal  and  six  soldiers,  and  nine 
watermen,  to  accompany  the  expedition  as  far  as  the 
Mandan  nation,  in  order  to  assist  in  carrying  the 
stores,  or  repelling  an  attack,  which  was  most  to 
be  apprehended  between  Wood  river  and  that  tribe. 
This  select  party  embarked  on  board  three  boats. 
One  was  a  keel- boat  fifty-five  feet  long,  drawing 
three  feet  of  water,  with  a  large  square  sail,  and 
twenty-two  oars,  with  a  forecastle  and  cabin,  while 
the  middle  was  covered  by  lockers,  which  might 
be  raised  so  as  to  form  a  breast-work.  There  were 
beside  two  periogues,  or  open  boats  of  seven  oars 
each.  They  had  two  horses,  for  any  purpose,  which 
they  led  along  the  bajiks ;  and  fourteen  bales  of 
goods,  with  a  variety  of  clothing,  working  utensils, 
locks,  flints,  ammunition,  and  richly-laced  coats, 
and  other  gay  dresses,  and  a  variety  of  ornaments 
suited  to  the  taste  of  the  Indians,  together  with 
knives,  flags,  tomahawks,  and  medals.  Yet  all 
these  articles  were  exhausted,  without  any  accident 
or  particular  loss.  The  party  was  led  by  two  ex- 
perienced military  officers,  and  the  men  were  under 
military  regulations;  which  was  not  the  case  with 
the  Cambridge  adventurers,  who  were  upon  shares, 
and  all  on  a  level. 

We  are  unwilling  that  our  readers  should  rely 
entirely  on  our  opinion  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  out- 
fits for  such  a  formidable  undertaking  as  that  of 
going  from  the  Atlantic  shore  of  New-England  to 
the  shore  of  the  Pacific  by  land.  We  shall  there- 
fore subjoin  the  opinion  of  a  sensible  gentleman, 
who  had  spent  some  time  in  the  Missouri  territory, 
and   traversed  its  dreary  prairies,  where  no  tree 


t 

t 

si 


COxNCLUDING    REFLECTIONS. 


81 


rom 

lese, 

Inine 

the 

the 

1st  to 

ribe. 

loats. 

wing 

and 

[while 

night 

were 

1  oars 

which 

lies  of 

ensils, 

coats, 

iments 

r  with 

[et  all 

:cident 

^vo  ex- 

?  under 

le  with 

shares, 

Id  rely 
he  out- 
that  of 
land  to 
I  there- 
tie  man, 
jrritory, 
no  tree 


appears,  and  where  there  is,  durinj^  the  greater  part  of 
the  year,  no  fuel  for  cooking,  nor  water  fit  to  driidi. 
He  says  :  "  Do  the  Ore!j;on  emigrants  seek  a  fine 
country  on  the  Oregon  river?  They  will  pass 
through  lands  [to  get  to  it]  of  which  they  may 
buy  two  hundred  acres  for  less  than  the  farther 
expenses  of  their  journey."  *  He  tells  us  that  a 
gentleman  (Mr.  Kelly)  has  been  employing  his 
leisure  in  devising  schemes  to  better  the  condition 
of  his  fellow  countrymen,  and  has  issued  advertise- 
ments, inviting  the  good  jjoople  of  New-England  to 
leave  their  homes,  their  connexions,  and  the  com- 
fort.s  of  civilized  society,  and  follow  him  across  the 
continent  to  the  shores  of  the  Pacific.  He  tells 
those  who  may  reach  St.  Louis,  that  they  will  find 
there  many  who  have  been  to  Oregon,  and  found 
no  temptation  to  remain  there;  —  that  they  may 
possil)ly  charter  a  steamboat  from  St.  Louis  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river  Platte,  but  no  farther,  as  that 
stream  is  not  navigable  for  steamboats  unless  during 
freshets.  And  after  tlusy  reach  the  mouth  of  the 
Platte,  they  will  have  a  thousand  miles  to  go  !)efore 
thej^  reach  the  Rocky  Mountains;  and  the  country 
through  which  the  adventurers  nujst  pass  is  a  level 
plain,  where  the  eye  ^.eeks  in  vain  for  a  tree  or  a 
shrub,  —  that  in  some  places  they  must  travel  days 
and  nights  without  finding  wood  or  water,  for  that 
the  streams  only  are  scantily  fringed  with  wood. 
Our  Cambridi^e  emigrants  actually  found  this  to  be 
the  case,  as  they  had  no  other  fuel  for  cooking  their 
live  stock  than  buffalo  dung.  The  writer  says,  (and 
he  had  been  there,)  that  the  ground  is  covered  with 


*See  New-Eng-land  Magazine  for  February    and  April,   1839, 
under  the  signature  of  W.  J.  S, 


p 


82 


WYETH'S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


herbage  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  year  only,  and  that 
this  is  owing  to  the  Indians  burning  the  Prairies 
regularly  twice  a  year,  which  occasions  them  to  be 
as  bare  of  vegetation  as  the  deserts  of  Arabia.  The 
same  experienced  traveller  assures  them  that  they 
could  not  take  provisions  with  them  sufficient  for 
their  wants,  and  that  a  dependence  on  their  guns 
for  support  was  fallacious,  and  the  same  uncertainty 
as  to  the  buffaloes ;  —  that  sometimes  those  animals 
were  plenty  ( L^ouiih,  and  sometimes  more  than 
enough,  so  as  r>  be  dangerous.  When  they  trot 
smartly  ofT,  ten  tiiousand  and  more  in  a  drove,  they 
are  as  irro'^isiible  as  a  mountain-torrent,  and  would 
tread  into  i.  jtiiing  a  larger  body  than  the  Cambridge 
fortune-huntpi' .  Their  flesh  is  coarse  beef,  and 
the  grisly  bear's,  coarse  pork  ;  but  this  kind  of  bear, 
called  the  horrible  from  his  strength  and  ierocity,  is 
a  most  terrific  beast,  and  more  disposed  and  able 
to  feed  on  the  hunter  than  the  huntsman  upon 
him.  We  can  assure  the  emigrants,  says  the  writer 
already  quoted,  from  our  own  experience,  that  not 
one  horse  in  five  can  perform  a  journey  of  a  thou- 
sand miles,  without  a  constant  supply  of  something 
better  than  prairie-grass. 

The  journal  of  Lewis  and  Clarke  to  the  Pacific 
ocean,  over  the  Rocky  iMountains,  was  a  popular 
book  in  the  hands  of  every  body  ':  anc'  the  Expedi- 
tion of  Major  Long  and  company  was  as  much  read  ; 
and  both  of  these  works  detail  events  and  facts 
enough,  one  would  suppose,  to  deter  men  from  such 
an  arduous  enterprise ;  not  to  mention  the  hostile 
tribes  of  Indians  through  which  they  must  pass.  It 
seems  strange,  but  it  is  true,  that  a  theoretical  man 
need  not  despair  of  making  the  multitude  believe 
any  thing  but  truth.    They  believed  the  enthusiastic 


that 

iries 

o  be 

The 

they 
for 

guns 
ainty 

mals 

than 
trot 
,they 
ivould 
)riclge 
f,  and 

bear, 
;ity,  is 
i  able 

upon 

writer 

lat  not 

i  thou- 

lething 

Pacific 
popular 
"^xpedi- 
h  read ; 
d  i'acts 
>m  such 

hostile 
>ass.  It 
::al  man 

believe 
msiastic 


CONCLUDING    REFLECTIONS. 


83 


Mr.  HallJ.Kelley,who  had  never  been  in  the  Oregon 
territory,  or  seen  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  a  prairie- 
dog,  or  a  drove  of  buffaloes,  and  who  in  fact  knew 
nothing  of  the  country  beyond  some  guess-work 
maps  ;  yet  they  would  not  read,  consider,  or  trust  to 
the  faithful  records  of  those  officers  who  had  been 
sent  by  the  government  to  explore  the  country  and 
make  report  oi  it. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  essay  written  by  W. 
J.  S.  which  we  shall  insert  here  on  his  authority, 
as  it  cannot   be  supposed  that  we,  at  this  distance, 
should   be  so  well  accpiainted  with  the  affairs  in 
Missouri,  as  one  who  had  resided  on  the  spot.    We 
assume  not  to  keep  pace  with  the  professed  eulogist 
of  Oregon,  of  its  river,  and  its   territory,  its  mild 
climate,  its  exuberant  soil,  and  its  boisterous  Pacific, 
so  inviting  to  the  distressed  poor  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Boston ;  who  are  exhorted  by  him  to  pluck 
up  stakes  and  courage,  and  march  over  the  Rocky 
Mountains  to  wealth,  ease,  and  independence.    The 
passage  we  allude  to  reads  thus  :  —  "  About  twelve 
years  since,  it  was  discovered   by  a  public-s))irited 
citizen  of  St.   Louis,   that  the  supply  of  furs  was 
not  equal  to  the  demand.    To  remedy  this  evil,  he 
raised  a  corps  of  sharp-shooters,  equipj)ed  them  with 
guns,  ammunition,  steel-traps,  and  horses,  and  sent 
them  into  the  wilderness  to  .each  the  Indians  that 
their  right  was  only  a  right  of  occupancy.     They 
did  the  savages  irrej)aral)le  injury.   They  iViglitened 
the  buffaloes  from  their  usual -haunts,  —  destroyed 
the  fur-clad  animals,  and  did  more  mischief  than 
we  have  room  to  relate."     He  adds,  sarcrastically, 
that  "  the  Indians  were  wont  to  hunt  in  a  slovenly 
manner,  leaving  a  few  animals  yearly  for  breeding. 
But  that  the  white  hunters  were  more  thorough- 


84 


WYETH  S  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


if!  i 


spirited,  and  made  root-and-branch  work  of  it. 
When  they  settled  on  a  district,  they  destroyed  the 
old  and  youn^^  alike  ;  and  when  they  left  it,  they 
left  no  living  thing  beliind  them.  The  first  party 
proving  successful,  more  were  fitted  out,  and  every 
successive  year  has  seen  several  armed  and  mounted 
bands  of  hunters,  from  twenty  to  a  hundred  men 
and  more  in  each,  pouring  into  the  Indian  hunting 
grounds;  and  all  this  has  been  done  in  open  and 
direct  violation  of  a  law  of  the  United  States,  which 
expressly  forbids  trapping  and  hunting  on  Indian 
lands.  The  consequence  has  been  that  there  are 
now  ^^w  fur-clad  animals  this  side  the  mountains." 

Lewis  and  Clarke,  and  some  other  trav(;llers, 
speak  of  friendly  Indians, -^  of  their  kindness  and 
hospitality,  and  expatiate  on  tlieir  amiable  disposi- 
tion, and  relate  instances  of  it.  Yet  after  all,  this 
Indian  friendship  is  very  like  the  affection  of  the 
nesroes  in  the  Southern  States  for  their  masters 
and  mistresses,  and  for  their  children, —  the  offspring 
merely  of  fear.  There  can  be  no  friendship  where 
there  is  such  a  disparity  of  condition.  As  to  their 
presents,  an  Indian  gift  is  proverbial.  They  never 
give  without  expecting  double  in  return. 

What  right  have  we  to  fit  out  armed  expeditions, 
and  enter  the  long  occupied  country  of  the  rjatives, 
to  destroy  their  game,  not  for  subsistence,  but  for 
their  skins  ?  They  are  a  contented  people,  and  do 
not  want  our  aid  to  make  them  happier.  We  prate 
of  civilizing  and  Christianizing  the  savages.  What 
have  we  done  for  their  benefit  ?  We  have  carried 
among  them  rum^poicder  'Awdi  hall,  small-pox,  starva- 
tion, and  misery.  What  is  the  reason  that  Congress, 
—  the  great  council  of  the  nation, —  the  collected 
wisdom  of  these  United  States,  has  turned  a  deaf 


WYETh's  OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


85 


it. 

the 

[they 

>arty 

fcvery 

linted 

men 

luting 

\i  and 

which 

hidian 

re  are 

auis." 

tellers, 

ss  and 

isposi- 

1,  this 

of  the 

nasters 

ffspring 

)  where 

to  their 

y  never 

iditions, 
lyatives, 
but  for 
,  and  do 
\'e  prate 
1.    What 
3  carried 
(,  starva- 
'ongress, 
collected 
jd  a  deaf 


I 


ear  to  all  applications  for  establishing  a  colony  on  the 
Oregon  river  ?  Some  of  the  members  of  that  honora- 
ble house  of  legislation  know  that  the  district  in  ques- 
tion is  a  boisterous  and  inclement  region,  with  less 
to  eat,  less  to  warm  the  traveller,  and  to  cook  with, 
than  at  the  mouth  of  any  other  known  river  in  the 
United  States.  We  deem  the  mouth  of  the  river  St. 
Lawrence  as  eligible  a  spot  for  a  settlement  of  peltry 
merchants  as  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia.  When 
Lewis  and  Clarke  were  on  that  river,  they  had  not 
a  single  fair  day  in  two  months.  They  were 
drenched  with  rain  day  and  night ;  and  what  added 
to  their  comfortless  condition  was  the  incessant 
high  winds,  which  drove  the  waves  furiously  into 
the  Columbia  river  with  the  tide ;  and  on  its  ebb, 
raised  such  commotion,  and  such  a  chopping  sea, 
that  the  travellers  dared  not  venture  upon  it  in  their 
boats;  yet  the  Indians  did,  and  managed  their 
canoes  with  a  dexterity  which  the  explorers  greatly 
admired,  but  could  not  imitate.  The  boisterous 
Pacific  was  among  the  new  discoveries  of  our 
American  adventurers.  Had  their  expedition  been 
to  the  warm  climate  of  Africa,  or  to  South  America, 
they  would  have  been  sure  of  plenty  to  eat ;  but  in 
the  western  region,  between  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  the  great  river  of  the  W^est,  the  case  is  far 
otherwise. 

It  is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  truth  may  pre- 
vail respecting  those  distant  regions.  Indeed  the 
sacred  cause  of  humanity  calls  loudly  on  its  votaries 
to  disabuse  the  people  dwelling  on  these  Atlantic 
shores  respecting  the  Oregon  paradise,  lest  our 
farmers'  sons  and  young  mechanics  should,  in  every 
sense  of  the  phrase,  stray  from  home,  and  go  they 
know  not  whither,  —  to  seek  they  know  not  what. 

8 


86 


I 


vvyeth's  OREGON  expi;dition. 


m 


If     ;    ' '  (. 


Or  must  Truth  wait  on  the  Rocky  Mountains  until 
some  Indian  historian,  —  some  future  Clavigero* 
shall  publish  his  annals,  and  separate  facts  from 
fiction?  We  esteem  the  ^'' History  of  the  Expedi- 
tion under  the  command  of  Captains  Lewis  and 
Clarke  to  the  Sources  of  the  Missouri,  thence  across 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  down  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,''*  substantially  correct.  Their  conduct 
towards  the  Indians  was  marked  throughout  with 
justice  and  humanity;  and  the  journal  of  that  ex- 
pedition will  be  a  lasting  monument  of  their  judi- 
cious perseverance,  and  of  the  wisdom  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States, 

Reader!    The  book  you  have  in  your  hands  is 
not  written  for  your  amusement  merely,  or  to  fill 
up  an  idle  hour,  but  for  your  instruction, — particu- 
larly to  warn  young  farmers  and  mechanics  not  to 
leave  a  certainty  for  an  uncertainty,  and  straggle 
away  over  a  sixth  part  of  the  globe,  in  search  of 
what    they    leave    behind    them    at    home.     It    is 
hoped  that  it  may  correct  that  too  common  opinion 
'  \t  the  farther  you  go  from  home  the  surer  you 
of  making  your  fortune.      Agriculture  gives  to 
ndustrious  farmer  the  riches  which  he  can  call 
his  own;   while  the  indefatigable  mechanic  is  «nre 
to  acquire  a  sufficiency,  provided  he  "  build  not  his 
house  too  high." 

Industry  conducted  by  Prudence  is  a  virtue  of  so 
diffusive  a  nature  that  it  mixes  with  all  our  con- 
cerns. No  business  can  be  managed  and  accom- 
plished without  it.  Whatever  be  a  man's  calling  or 
way  of  life,  he  must,  to  be  happy,  be  actuated  by 

*The  Abb6  Clavigero,  a  native  of  Vera  Cruz,  who  resided  forty 
years  in  the  Provinces  of  New  Spain,  spoke  the  language  of  the 
i?atives,  and  has  written  the  Hi^itory  of  Mexico. 


li 


WYETH  S   OREGON  EXPEDITION. 


87 


ntil 

I/O* 

oin 

edi- 

and 

ross 

icific 

duct 

with 
ex- 
udi- 

gov- 

ids  is 
to  fill 
ivticu- 
not  to 
raggle 
irch  of 
It    is 
Dpinion 
er  you 
^ives  to 
;an  call 
is  «nre 
not  his 


a  spirit  of  industry,  and  that  will  keep  him  from 
\\ant,  from  dishonesty,  and  from  the  vice  of  gam- 
bling and  lottery-dealing,  and  its  long  train  of 
miseries. 

The    first   and    most   common   deviation    from 
sober  industry  is  a  desire  to  roam  abroad,  or  in  one 
word,  a  feeling  of  discontent,  —  a  making  haste  to 
be  rich,  without  the  paiient  means  of  it.     These 
are  reflections  general  and  not  particular,  as  it  re- 
gards all  such  high  ho|)es  and  expectations,  as  K 
to  our  Oregon  expedition  and  to  its  disappointmen' 
The  most  that  we  shall  say  of  it  is,  —  that  it  was  n 
injudicious  scheme  arising  from  want  of  due  infoi 
mation,  and  the  whole  conducted  by  means   in- 
adequate to  the  end  in  view. 

Oh  happy  —  if  he  knew  his  happy  state, 
The  man,  who,  free  from  turmoil  and  debate. 
Receives  his  wholesome  food  from  Nature's  hand, 
The  just  return  of  cultivated  land. 


THE    END. 


Lie  of  SO 

ur  con- 

accom- 

alling  or 

rated  by 


isided  forty 
aoro  of  the 


